X793 Grand Magic Games
by Megadoomer
Summary: The world has been at peace ever since the defeat of Zeref, and now the time has come for the annual Grand Magic Games! Mages from all over the world gather to prove who is the strongest. Will this be an ordinary competition, or do sinister plots lurk behind the scenes? …Probably the second one – that's usually how these tournaments go. (Match-ups are determined by fan votes)
1. Peaceful Beginnings

**Before we start, I feel like I should provide a warning. Spoilers** _ **will be inevitable**_ **for the Fairy Tail manga, as well as the anime. As there are still several chapters left at the time that I write this, some details (such as the state of Alvarez) may be off by the time the series reaches its conclusion, but I will do my best to address them if any inconsistencies come up. As long as there isn't a sudden surprise downer ending which clashes with the tone of the rest of the series, I should be good, but you never know.**

During the battle with Alvarez, peace and normalcy seemed like they were about to become things of the past. While Ishgar had seen its share of skirmishes between guilds, full-blown war was extremely rare, especially one that involves the level of mages that exist in the present day. While the war had been brief, many had suffered both emotionally and physically, and with the dramatic revelations and countless near misses, it seemed like things would never return to the way they were.

However, not even a year later, Magnolia had gone back to normal. People were joyfully walking through the streets, stores were open for business, someone was being thrown through a window at the Fairy Tail guild…

"Bring it on, all of ya!" Of course, the Fairy Tail guild had degenerated into a massive brawl, with Natsu Dragneel at center. The pink haired Dragon Slayer hadn't started the fight – in fact, it was unclear _who_ exactly had started it – but he was easily one of the most enthusiastic participants. Fortunately for everyone involved, the guild's S Class mages were staying out of it – Gildarts was sitting at the bar laughing it up as he watched the fighting happen, while Laxus was just annoyed by all of the racket. Erza would have stepped in to stop it by this point, but she was working on her third strawberry cake thanks to a trip to the bakery with Wendy, and the combatants were giving that table a wide berth to avoid becoming the targets of her wrath.

"Natsu! Let's see how manly you've gotteeeeeee—" Elfman's speech is interrupted as Gajeel grabs him, tossing him into a wall.

"Heh. Salamander beat Zeref, and all of a sudden, he thinks he's some kinda super star." Gajeel calls out above the din. "We all heard that Zeref went down in four hits, Salamander! I could've beaten him in two punches, easy!"

"Prove it, Gajeel!" Natsu leaps off the table, but runs face-first into an abruptly summoned ice wall. "GAH! Cold!"

Gray grins, his shirt discarded at some point. "You weren't all that tough when we fought, flame brain. Erza stopped us last time, but this time, I'm gonna show you that ice beats fire."

Droy stares at Gray, confused. "Uh… Gray, that makes no sense." All of a sudden, a chill runs up his spine, and it had nothing to do with Gray. Glancing over his shoulder, he expects to see the cold spectre of Death. Instead, he sees an angry Juvia, which is almost as terrifying.

"Are you insulting Gray-sama?" The blue haired woman tilts her head, her eyes wide and cold with fury, while her hand turns into water.

"I'm sorryyyyyyyyyy~~!" That's all Droy can get out before he's washed away in a sudden tidal wave along with several other guild members.

Lucy Heartfilia was mercifully untouched by all of this – planning ahead, she chose a seat near Erza, along with Levy, Wendy, Carla, and Happy, so they wouldn't be bothered. Barely noticing the chaos, Lucy looks forlornly at the mission board, which was practically barren and almost entirely ignored. The only other person paying attention to it was Nab, who was still unable to find a job off of it despite having significantly less options to choose from.

"How am I going to pay my rent now?" Smaller jobs were consistently coming in, but ever since Ishgar formally allied itself with Alvarez, and the newly appointed Emperor Invel decried any and all Dark Guild activity (especially those that would use the name of the former emperor for their own purposes), going after Dark Guilds became legal. The amount of Dark Guilds shrunk dramatically as a result, as did the amount of high paying jobs. Between that and Zeref's death resulting in the destruction of all of his demons, the world was at peace – this was good for society, but bad for Lucy's wallet.

While she had made great progress with her book, she still feels nowhere near ready to publish it, so making money from that was out of the question. Modelling gigs were few and far between, and she wasn't about to move to a smaller apartment.

Erza takes a break from eating her cake to smile at the blonde, well aware of Lucy's rent issues by this point. "Maybe we could take a mission together – that way, the reward wouldn't have to be split so many ways."

Lucy lays her head on the table. "…That's not why we normally don't get much money …" Still, thinking about it, it could be fun – Natsu tends to cause most of the destruction on their missions, and while Gray isn't as destructive, he does rack up quite a bit of public indecency charges just by bringing him along. "I'd be happy to go on one, though! What did you have in mind?"

"It's a simple delivery mission. We just need to bring supplies to a village…"

Lucy brightens up. "Okay, that-"

"…on a path through the Lightning Swamp." Erza eats another forkful of cake – to her, that sounds like an ordinary, even somewhat dull, mission.

Lucy stares at Erza, terrified, as Levy and Wendy chuckle nervously. "Um… I'll think about it."

"MAAAASTERRRRRRR!" Suddenly, a loud yell can be heard above the shouting and smashing in the guild hall. The sand mage Max Alors flings open the door to the guild hall, clutching a paper in his hand as though his life depended on it. "Everyone, you _have_ to hear this!"

"Hm? What is it?" Makarov eyes Max with a curious expression on his face, taking a break from his chat with Mirajane.

Max waves the paper in the air, with the symbol of Fiore's royal family clearly visible on its back. "This just arrived… It's from the royal court!"

Upon hearing this, Makarov's face turns as white as his hair. Murmurs run through the crowd, as the assembled mages wonder what this could mean. "Oh no… What did Natsu do this time?"

Natsu yells at Makarov. "Hang on, gramps! I haven't done anything to those guys ever since I burned the Fairy Tail name into the side of the castle!"

Makarov's gaze turned to Natsu, wide-eyed; the guild master feels like all of his hair is going to fall out right then and there. "You did _what_?!"

Max shakes his head. "That's not it – listen." Clearing his throat, he begins to read from the sheet. "This is an official invitation to the Grand Magic Games. Normally, participation is entirely voluntary on the part of the participating guilds, but as last year's turn-out was missing many of the guilds that our subjects, and ourselves, were hoping to see, a more active approach is required."

Lucy chuckles. "It wasn't very interesting to watch, that's for sure." She had covered the entire X792 Grand Magic Games for the Weekly Sorcerer Magazine, and the competition that year was lackluster – she feels safe in saying that _she_ could have taken on any member of the competing guilds and came out on top.

"Due to our recent alliance with Alvarez, we wish to showcase the talent that our continent has to offer. As such, any allied nations who can make the journey to Fiore can take part in this year's Grand Magic Games, along with all legal guilds, will be allowed to participate."

Natsu brightens up, thinking of the possibilities. "Whoa… That'll be a _lot_ of strong people!"

"As usual, the only limit is that five mages are allowed per team, with one substitute player in the event of injury or inability to compete in a round. The competition will begin in one week's time, June 30th X793, in Crocus, Fiore's capital."

"Hope they repaired the stadium." A sinister glint appears in Gajeel's eye as he realizes something. "Hey, Salamander! I've gonna have to arrest you for that!"

Natsu yells back at him. "W _hat_?! That happened a year ago! It's ancient history!"

"There's more!" Max looks down at the note. "Due to a lack of interest from guilds in the previous year, the prize money has been increased temporarily. For this year alone, the winning guild gets a hundred million Jewels…"

"A-A hundred…" Makarov's eyes practically bulge out of his head, and it looks like he's about to fall over out of shock.

"…and on top of that, each member of the winning team will get a million Jewels!"

Lucy's eyes are gleaming. "My rent… finally, I wouldn't have to worry about my rent…"

Natsu laughs. "If they wanted more people to compete, they should've just asked! WE'RE IN!"

Makarov's hand stretches across the guild to smack Natsu on the top of the head. "You don't get to decide that!" Clearing his throat, he stands up on the bar. "As the eighth guild master of Fairy Tail, I declare that we will compete in this year's Grand Magic Games… And we'll kick the asses of any team that gets in our way!"

This gets a resounding cheer from the packed guild hall, as everyone gets to work, moving to create support banners, spread the word about Fairy Tail's involvement, and place bets on any number of situations that could potentially happen at the games, from potential events to who would win in certain fights. For the first time in a while now, everybody in the guild is active, energetic, and working towards a goal – even Nab is pitching in.

Erza looks around, amused. "I'm glad to see everybody working hard, but I feel like we should pick teams before handling anything else."

"Why?" Natsu hops down from the bar, walking over to Lucy, Wendy, Gray, and Erza. "We've already got Fairy Tail's A Team right here!"

"'A Team'? That's too bad, Salamander." Gajeel points at Natsu, grinning demonically. "'Cause we've got Fairy Tail Team One, ready to trample all over you guys!"

Laxus grumbles. "I thought we were the B team… And don't act like you're in charge, Gajeel."

The long haired iron Dragon Slayer turns his gaze from Natsu to Laxus, annoyed that his bragging was interrupted. "Shut it, lightning bastard! You wanna go?"

Juvia steps between the two of them. "Gajeel-san, Laxus-san, we're a team, remember?"

Gray's eyes go wide. "Juvia?! What are you doing over there?"

Juvia looks at Gray with her usual adoring look. "I'm sorry, Gray-sama, but since the Penalty Game didn't go as well as I hoped last time, I wanted to get another shot to make it work!"

"Geez… I still don't get her…" Even though the two of them occasionally went out on dates after Alvarez, Gray still found it difficult to follow Juvia's train of thought some times. Ever since Juvia nearly killed herself for his sake during the fight with Invel, Gray wasn't sure how to make it up to her, but a few dinners together seemed like a good place to start, much to Juvia's eternal delight.

Mirajane gives a warm smile, though one could still sense her demonic nature beneath it. "Ah, yes, the Penalty Game. That was quite a lot of fun - wasn't it, Erza? I'm looking forward to repeating it this year."

Erza points dramatically at Mirajane, as memories of being forced into a maid costume, tied up, and publicly humiliated come rushing back to her. "This year, _you're_ the one who's going to go through that!" Even after all of these years, Mirajane is still one of the few people who can get under her skin with ease. Mira just giggles in response, annoying Erza more.

"I think I'll change things up this year." Cana rests her arm on Lucy's shoulder, a bottle of wine in her other hand. "Helping Wendy out was fun, but this year, I think I'm gonna spend some quality time with Lucy."

Lucy's face goes beet red as she remembers the other times that Cana wanted to spend "quality time" with her. Most of those times tended to happen while Lucy was bathing, so she had plenty of reasons to be nervous. "Um… Gajeel… Are you sure that you don't want me to help with getting people to watch your performance?" Sure, being forced to dance in a bunny suit was just humiliating, but not as embarrassing as what Cana was bound to do to her.

Gajeel shakes his head, enjoying how flustered Lucy is getting from all of this. "Nah, this year, I'm gonna make Wendy work for me."

Happy covers his mouth, trying and failing to supress a laugh. "You want Wendy in a bunny suit? I didn't know Gajeel was like Mest…" Somewhere among the pandemonium of the guild, Mest sneezes.

Gajeel growls, his mood immediately souring. "Not that, dummy! I heard the kid figured out how to use Dragon Force whenever she wants. I'm gonna get her to teach me how to do that, and then Salamander's gonna be the last place Dragon Slayer for sure!"

Natsu glares at Gajeel. "Huh? What'd you say, scrap brain?"

Wendy tries to keep them apart, though given how tiny she is, it doesn't amount to much. "Um… Can we save it for the tournament, please?"

Erza grabs Natsu's scarf, pulling him away and nearly choking him in the process. "That's right. None of us have even qualified yet, so we can't afford to get overconfident."

Lucy pumps her fist, energized by both the mood in the guild and the prize money. "No matter who wins, we'll definitely show everyone the power of Fairy Tail!" The gathered mages nod, and then split off to strategize for the upcoming games.

Throughout Ishgar and beyond, a similar scene plays out in countless guild halls – the massive amount of prize money, both for the guilds and for the winning team members, is too much for anyone to ignore. Even in one particular guild hall, the excitement is practically visible despite the hall itself being hastily put together and the guild consisting of a handful of people.

"Did you see the announcement for this year's Grand Magic Games?"

"Yes. Don't worry, we're competing. It's time away from the mission, but it's for a good cause."

"…Seeing your girlfriend doesn't count as a good cause."

"That's not - What I meant was, we need the money for our guild hall. Even if an appearance draws more people to our cause, it won't mean much if our guild hall looks like it would fall over from a stiff breeze. We only became legal thanks to our efforts in the war, and we're on the borderline as is. Competing in this should help to make us more legitimate."

"However you want to sell it to yourself, boss. We all know the real reason you're doing this."

"We all have our reasons. I'm sure you want in, since Natsu's almost definitely going to be there."

"You're damn right! I've been looking forward to getting some kind of payback!"

"Then it's settled – we're going."

As both old and new guilds gather together, drawn by the fame, the glory, and the prize money, the outcome of this year's Grand Magic Games remains uncertain. Only one thing is guaranteed, however – it's bound to be an improvement over last year's. Seriously, Scarmiglione was the strongest that Fiore had to offer outside of the guilds that competed in X791's games?

 **As I wrap this chapter up, I want to mention that the match-ups in this story will be determined by fan votes! The teams will be randomly matched up against each other once they're all revealed (there will hopefully be a few surprises among the competing teams), and there's no voting as of yet, but keep an eye on this work for further details.**


	2. Arrival and Reunion

**I'm glad to see that people have already followed this story and listed it as a favourite! That definitely encourages me to keep going with this, though clearly I have a long way to go as a writer when the only complement that I get is that my spelling is good (haha).**

 **I've been asked this a few times, but I'm going to try to avoid including original characters in this story, at least as participants in the tournament. I don't want to risk falling into the trap of them overshadowing or trivializing the main characters, and I wouldn't really know how to handle them if I did decide to include them. I might have to make up characters in order to fill certain roles in the story as time goes on, but I've already got the competitors planned out for the tournament itself. Still, I appreciate the enthusiasm!**

The week flew by faster than anyone had expected – rumour has it that the guilds were given much shorter notice this year because the royal family needed time to scrape together the prize money, or to force the hands of the competing guilds, but those were mostly unfounded. Still, excitement for this year's Grand Magic Games was at a fever pitch, and nowhere was this more apparent than the nation's capital itself, Crocus.

Even the train ride in made this crystal clear. The Fairy Tail guild had decided to go to Crocus a few days early to beat the rush, but seemingly the entire mage population of Fiore had the same idea. When it came to taking the train, Lucy was used to having a lot of space to herself (travelling with someone who perpetually looked like he was going to throw up helped with that), but with so many seats booked, the entire Fairy Tail guild had to cram themselves into two train cars.

Fairy Tail's Team A and the newly-renamed "Team One" had went into separate cars so they could strategize without being overheard, but beyond that, it was almost standing room only. Erza was trying to organize a meeting, determining who the biggest threats might be while Gray and Lucy brought up rumours they had heard about who was participating, but with two of their five members looking like they're going to be sick, it wasn't the most productive session.

"Ugh… Why'd we have to take a train?" Natsu moans, trying to sit up before collapsing. The pink-haired Dragon Slayer was, as always, opposed to taking any kind of transportation.

Lucy sighs. "It can't be helped, which you'd realize if you looked out the window." The blonde summoner points out the window. Natsu raises his head, briefly glimpsing a line of carts extending towards the horizon in both directions before he loses his strength again. For most of the trip, carts (both horse-drawn and magic-powered) had been lined up outside of their window, all heading in the same direction – towards Crocus.

Since Natsu had melted the previous arena, it had been rebuilt, considerably larger than before, and with rumours flying about the turnout for this year's games, seemingly everyone wanted to watch the Grand Magic Games live. The Fairy Tail guild still had people stopping by the guild hall, wanting members of both teams to sign the issues of Weekly Sorcerer Magazine that had reported on some of their greatest moments from the X791 Games, and it was undoubtedly the case in other guilds as well.

Carla smiles sympathetically, patting Wendy on the back in her cat form – with so little space in the train car, she thought it best to stick with that state. "My apologies, Wendy – I would fly you there if that was an option, but the train moves much faster than I can."

Wendy shakes her head. "It's all right, Carla. I can… hrghh… take this. For a little longer. Maybe…" She clutches her stomach, already nostalgic for the days where she could ride in a carriage or on a boat without a care in the world.

Gray smirks, elbowing Natsu playfully. "It's a shame that Mest can't teleport so many people at once, or over such a large distance. Maybe then, we wouldn't have to deal with your complaining!"

Natsu sits up, a fire burning in his eyes as he is ready to fight at that remark. "Why you… URGH…" Just as quickly as it had appeared, the inferno is extinguished, and Natsu clutches his mouth, doubling over in agony.

Paying no mind to her teammates' discomfort, Erza continues on with her strategy session. "Of course, Lamia Scale's going to be bringing their top mages, Jura included. But the real problem would be - Millianna!"

Lucy and Gray turn to see the cat-like mage from Mermaid Heel, who is trying to stealthily grab Happy. The blue cat is too distracted by a fish that he's eating to even notice. In a flash, she puts her hands behind her back, giggling at Erza's statement. "Yeah, I'm pretty strong, all right! How's it going, Er-chan?"

Erza's expression warms considerably, shifting away from battle-hardened tactical planning as she gets up to greet her childhood friend. "It's going well. I take it you're competing in this year's Grand Magic Games as well?"

Erza goes in for a handshake, but Millianna immediately grips her tightly in a hug, affectionate as always. "Yeah! Kagura's been training all of us really hard, so we'll be way tougher than last time!" Millianna looks around before whispering in a manner better suited for involvement in some sort of conspiracy. "Maybe a little too hard, if you ask me…"

Erza chuckles at that, returning Millianna's hug. "I'm sure it's not _that_ bad." Of course, Erza and Kagura have very similar mindsets when it comes to training (not to mention the concept of holding back), so she wouldn't see the problem with whatever training regimen Kagura put Mermaid Heel through.

Millianna brightens up as she remembers something. "Oh, and Kagura says hi too! I wanted her to come with me and say it in person, but she said something like…" Here, her facial expression and tone shift, closely resembling Mermaid Heel's ace. "…'I want to see her on the field of battle, so the first thing she sees of me is how strong I've become.'" Millianna immediately breaks into a giggling fit. "I think she was just embarrassed."

Erza chuckles as she tries to picture Kagura saying that. "Well, tell her I said hi, and that I haven't been slacking off either."

"Can do, Er-chan!" With that, Millianna breaks off the hug, and giving an enthusiastic wave, she heads off.

As she leans back in her seat, Lucy smiles as she thinks back on all of the mages that they've encountered on their adventures. "It's been a while since we've seen some of our friends from other guilds, huh? Hopefully Yukino gets to compete…" While Sabertooth is no longer as cutthroat as it once was, there would still be a lot of competition over who would represent the guild – even with Sting as the guild master, the other four spaces on the team would pretty much be locked up.

Wendy nods. "Chelia told me that she got her magic back, so I'm sure she'll be there." After undergoing Third Origin, drawing on all of her magic power to defeat Dimaria, it was believed that Chelia would never be able to use magic again. However, Chelia had learned God Slayer magic from study and hard work, so researching that topic again, combined with what she already learned about it the first time around, made learning God Slayer magic much easier on the second attempt. Wendy was relieved that she hadn't been the one to take the burden of the Third Origin – Chelia had learned her magic from a book, but Wendy had learned her magic from a dragon, and those were in short supply.

Gray looks out the window. "I wonder how Lyon's doing…" Gray hadn't heard from his fellow pupil of Ur since an issue of Weekly Sorcerer Magazine was published with pictures of Gray out for dinner with Juvia. Gray had no idea how they even _got_ those pictures, but he figured Lyon was either sulking or putting a lot more effort into training in order to win Juvia over. Or maybe he'd found someone else to obsess over – either way, their reunion was bound to be an unusual one.

Erza packs up her makeshift dossiers, gazing through them as she does. "I've encountered many powerful mages over the years – Bacchus, Kagura, Minerva, Ichiya… I'm looking forward to testing my skills against all of them once more." Of course, individual strength was less important than the effectiveness of the team as a whole, but Erza felt confident that she'd be seeing all of them in the competition.

Despite sweating profusely, Natsu tries to manage a grin. "This year, I'm gonna beat up Laxus, Sting, _and_ Jura! At the same time, if I get the chance!"

Lucy pats Natsu on the head, recalling the sort of damage that Jura and Laxus could cause with little to no effort on their parts. "Uh… good luck with that."

The train's whistle blows, signalling that they're nearing their destination. "FINALLY!" Natsu and Wendy perk up, tears of joy streaming down their faces. When the train stops, Wendy clings to Natsu's back as he forces his way through the crowd of Fairy Tail members, rushing to get off the train as soon as possible. Lucy sighs as everyone else follows the Dragon Slayers off of the train at a more leisurely pace.

Outside the train, Natsu and Wendy are doubled over, sweating and taking deep breaths of the fresh air. They aren't the only ones – Gajeel and Laxus are reacting in the same way, though Laxus is _trying_ to look cooler by leaning against the train instead. As it turns out, the Sabertooth guild was a few cars ahead of them, as a familiar blond haired mage leaps over the crowd to land near Natsu's team.

"Hey, Natsu! Couldn't handle a little train ride, huh?" Sting Eucliffe, Sabertooth's guild master, was a lot more light-hearted in his teasing compared to the first time that he met Natsu. However, it's clear that his teasing is purely bravado – with bags under his eyes and sweat pouring down his face, he obviously had the same problem as the other Dragon Slayers.

A few other members of Sabertooth follow Sting, though they work their way through the crowd instead of going over it. Yukino, the guild's Celestial Spirit mage, places a hand on Sting's shoulder. "Sting-san, maybe you should rest. It's been a long ride…"

Sting glances over his shoulder, laughing at the question. "I guess so. I just wanted to say hi to Natsu! And to let him know…" His grin turns from joyful to smug. "…that we've got some surprises up our sleeves for this year. You aren't going to beat Sabertooth so easily."

Natsu pumps his fists, fire wrapping around them. "Great! It's no fun if there's not a challenge!"

Minerva tries to look confident, but she's clearly a little embarrassed. Given her performance in the X791 Games, where she spent her time torturing the weaker members of guilds, manipulating the strong opponents to fight against each other, and aiming to achieve victory with as little effort as possible on her part, she feels like she has a lot to make up for. "Hopefully, I'll be able to beat you in a fair fight this time, Erza."

Erza nods; she doesn't hold a grudge over what happened, but she's interested to see how much Minerva has grown through her own efforts. "I'm looking forward to when we meet in the tournament."

Yukino smiles at Lucy as she leads Sting off. "We'll have to catch up later!" It's clear that the changing attitude of Sabertooth has been good for the girl; now that Sabertooth is more of a family as opposed to having an almost barbaric attitude towards the idea of strength, the members of the guild can feel more relaxed and secure about their place within the guild. Lucy nods in response, waving as the Sabertooth members head off to find their living quarters.

With so many Fairy Tail mages present to watch or take part in the tournament, on top of the sheer amount of mages present in general, they had to be spread out across three different buildings in the same general area. The two teams were in separate buildings, along with a few mages who wanted to stay close by, like Happy, Carla, or Pantherlily. Juvia tried to get permission to stay in Team A's building, but it was denied – the teams needed to be spread out so that they would be separate once the qualification round started. Besides, Makarov didn't want to risk the sort of shenanigans that would happen if Gray and Juvia were placed in the same building – he really didn't want to pay for flooding damage when homes in Crocus were so expensive. The building in between was where Makarov and most of the other Fairy Tail mages were staying, and it acted as a sort of neutral ground.

It didn't take long to get settled in, which for Fairy Tail, meant that things would quickly turn rowdy. "PILLOW FIGHT!" Natsu yells, and Gray and Erza (who, anticipating this, already took what she considers to be "the best" pillow) grab their pillows in preparation. Knowing full well what that means (the last time a pillow fight started, Lucy woke up bruised), Lucy grabs Wendy, Happy, and Carla, throws jackets on herself and Wendy, and rushes out the door.

It was a brisk night, which made the two mages grateful for bringing jackets. No stores were open at this time of night, but they're happy enough to wander around Crocus and see the sights. Sure, this sort of thing had gotten Wendy attacked the last time that they competed, but both Wendy and Lucy were much stronger now, and they were together – if one of them was attacked, the other would surely come to their aid.

As the two of them discuss the oddities of the Fairy Tail guild, what they do in their downtime, and other similar topics, Wendy spots a familiar bright pink head of hair in the distance. "Chelia?!"

"Hey, Wendy!" Chelia runs towards the Fairy Tail mages, eager to see her precious friend once more... only to trip over a small stone as she gets close. She falls into Wendy, knocking them both over, but seeing each other in that state just leaves them giggling.

Lucy smiles, watching Chelia help Wendy to her feet as the two friends catch up. All is well, at least until Lucy hears and feels someone breathing heavily down her neck. She shivers and cautiously looks over her shoulder, seeing a wide pair of eyes and a familiar mane of red hair.

"Flare?!" Despite the chill in the air, the former Raven Tail mage is dressed in her usual attire, a red dress that exposes her cleavage, back, and leg. Her hair seems to be glowing, almost like a flame; Lucy had seen Flare use her hair to cast fire spells when they were in Sun Village, so she assumes that Flare must be doing something similar here to keep herself warm.

Flare's smile widens, and Lucy is briefly reminded of a shark about to devour its prey. "Hi, Blondie. Here for the Grand Magic Games?"

"Y-Yeah…" Despite Flare's lack of experience when it comes to socializing, Lucy tries to act natural. "What about you? Is Raven Tail competing again?"

"Huh?" Flare tilts her head, as though she hadn't quite heard what Lucy had said. "No, Raven Tail's disbanded. I'm just here to watch _you_." Lucy shivers a little at that; Flare's tone of voice can make the most innocent-sounding statements seem like they're coming from a stalker. "You'd better not disappoint me, Blondie…"

Lucy shakes her head. "Don't worry, I've gotten a lot stronger since last time. Even if you were taking part, you'd have a lot of trouble if we had to fight again!"

"Oh?" Despite sounding confused, Flare looks excited. Her braids unravel and her hair starts to move back and forth as though it's alive, and Lucy reaches for her keys nervously. "Want to test that?"

A few tense moments pass, with Wendy, Chelia, and the Exceeds keeping a close eye on Flare as she stares Lucy down. As suddenly as it started moving, Flare's hair droops down over her body, and she giggles. "Just kidding."

Lucy puts her keys back, relaxing. "Flare, we _really_ need to work on your sense of humour."

Flare walks off, her hair forming into a large hand to wave at the group. "Sure, let's do that some time. See you around, Blondie."

Since they don't necessarily need to stick together until the day of the competition, Wendy decides to spend the night at Chelia's lodging with Carla, leaving Lucy and Happy to return to Fairy Tail's quarters (which now had several broken windows and pillow-shaped holes in the walls). The others were concerned, to say the least, when Lucy turned up without Wendy and Carla, but the explanation quickly calmed them.

The days flew by quickly, with the assembled mages taking the extra time to see the sights that Crocus has to offer. Before long, it was June 30th, the night before the Grand Magic Games officially began. Everyone was tense, gathered in their respective lodgings and waiting for midnight to roll around. When the clock finally struck twelve, a massive projection of Mato, the Games' mascot, appeared in the city square, clearly visible from every corner of Crocus. It was an open secret at this point that Mato was actually the King of Fiore in disguise, but given how much money the Games made off of merchandise of the short pumpkin-headed mascot, they couldn't exactly retire him.

"Hello, mages and guests alike-kabo! I am Mato, the host of the X793 Grand Magic Games, and I am proud to announce that they have officially begun!" He pauses as a deafening cheer resounds throughout the city, waiting until it is done before continuing. "For the qualification round, the rules are simple-kabo! You just need to be one of the first eight teams to reach my location, and you can take part in the Games!"

"ALL RIGHT!" Natsu leaps out the second floor window of his team's lodgings, clearly eager to get started…

…only for him to jump face-first into an invisible barrier placed a few feet in front of the lodgings. Mato continues, unaware of Natsu's actions. "Of course, there has to be a twist, so our top barrier mages have constructed enough walls to turn the entire city into a giant maze! You can't see the walls, though, so use your magic to find a way through the maze in time!"

The projection vanishes, giving the rest of the team enough time to get outside, only for it to appear a few moments later. "Oh, and the barriers also act as ceilings and floors, so you won't be able to fly over or dig under them, I'm afraid. Other than that, any method of travel goes!"

"What? That's no fair!" Lucy had already gotten out the key for Virgo and was preparing to summon the masochistic maid, but upon hearing that, she puts her key back.

"So it's only a maze, hm?" Erza smirks, her hands on her hips. "I think they're underestimating us."

Gray slams his fist into his palm, ice already beginning to form. "It's like they want us to pass this easily. Still, we'd better hurry – we don't want to get left behind."

Wendy isn't as confident as the other two, but she tries to look it. "Time to show everyone what Fairy Tail's made of!"

Natsu climbs to his feet, clutching his nose. "Let's do this!" With that, the five members of Fairy Tail Team A break into a sprint, their ultimate destination being the center of Crocus.

 **Two quick notes before we wrap up. As far as Chelia's magic goes, I'm basing it off of the question and answer section at the end of volume 59, which implies that she can get her magic back through training.**

 **r/fairytail/comments/5hihn9/ms_volume_59_question_corner_and_afterword/**

 **Also, the line-ups for Mermaid Heel and Lamia Scale will remain unchanged from the Grand Magic Games in the series proper (I hope it's not a shock to anyone that they'll qualify – they do have two of the strongest mages in the setting as major members), but the other teams will have some changes, ranging from minor to major. Hopefully they're all for the better!**


	3. Congregation

**With this chapter, we're finally entering the games themselves! The match-ups between the guilds are chosen through a website that randomly generates numbers, but as I mentioned earlier, you will be able to vote on who you would like to see in each match-up either through private messages or leaving a review.**

Motivation had been high at first, but as time dragged on, the mages of Fairy Tail were unsure if they were even making progress. Coating the walls with Aries' wool and Gray's ice had worked for a while, but even with using that to negate the invisibility of the walls, it seemed like every turn that they made led to a dead end. Lucy in particular was worried that the maze had been designed to give them the most difficult path – after all, between their effectiveness in the X791 Games and Natsu beating the champions of the X792 Games with no effort, Fairy Tail was a strong favourite to win this year, so maybe the people running the tournament thought that something like that would make it more dramatic.

"ARGH! This is getting us nowhere!" Natsu looks around, but there aren't even many other teams to see. They had spotted Gajeel's team as they were leaving, as well as briefly seeing Blue Pegasus a few minutes ago. Erza thought she had caught a glimpse of a familiar head of blue hair from a distance (though she dismissed it as a coincidence), and they had occasionally crossed paths with a few other teams that were quickly dispatched, like members of Dullahan Head and Carbuncle. However, there was nothing indicating how they were supposed to get to their destination.

"I agree. It feels like we've been wandering in circles." Erza shuts her eyes, considering their options.

Gray looks lost in thought, but his eyes light up as something comes to mind. "Well, if the normal methods aren't working, why don't we solve this problem the Fairy Tail way?"

"The Fairy…" Natsu slaps Gray on the back, a little harder than he needed to – he nearly sent Gray tumbling to the pavement. "Great idea, Gray!"

"…No problem." While Gray was tempted to pick a fight with Natsu, every second counts – they'd hate to be eliminated before the tournament began.

Planting his feet on the ground, Natsu takes a deep breath. "Fire Dragon King's…" A massive amount of flames erupt from his mouth, hitting the barrier. "…ROAR!" Somewhat impressively, the invisible walls manage to hold out for a handful of seconds before shattering like glass. The shards of the wall, now visible but transparent, scatter all over the ground, and a path towards the center of the city lies open before them. "Let's go!"

"Hurry up, guys!" Gray takes off running – already, the wall is slowly but surely starting to reform. Without further hesitation, the rest of the team follows him.

Wendy glows with an aura as she gathers magical energy. "Ile Vernier!" The entire team is surrounded by a green light, as Wendy's enchantment increases their speed. They zoom through the hole in the maze, passing by the Trimens and Jenny Realight, who are checking on a badly burned Ichiya – clearly, he happened to be standing in the wrong place when Natsu used his attack. Their eyes widening in horror, the members of the Blue Pegasus team take off after the Fairy Tail mages, with Ren carrying Ichiya on his back while muttering about how it's not like he _wants_ to carry Ichiya or anything.

Ahead of them, Thibault and the team of Twilight Ogre are running through Natsu's bypass as well. "What luck! Truly the gods are on our side! Now Twilight Ogre will make it to the Grand Magic Games, and show-" That's about as far as he gets before his entire team is frozen solid by Gray, who couldn't let an opportunity like that pass them by.

Before long, Natsu and company skid to a stop in front of Mato, with Lucy and Wendy panting and gasping for air. The other three, as expected, don't look to be winded in the slightest. "How'd… we… do?" Lucy looks up at the pumpkin-masked king.

Mato pulls out a clipboard and jots down a note. "Seventh place!"

Despite being close to missing out, Erza looks satisfied at that comment. "All right – we've improved since our first attempt!"

The pumpkin-headed mascot grins at that. "Yes, yes! I look forward to seeing you compete this year – to be honest, it wasn't as exciting without all of you around in the previous tournament. So far, the line-up has improved tremendously, so I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am!"

Lucy bows in gratitude. "Thank you for putting this on again – we promise we won't disappoint!"

Natsu tries to look over Mato's shoulder to see who else has qualified, but Mato clutches the clipboard close to his chest. "Yeah, thanks, old king guy!"

Mato seems to be more flustered by the comment than by Natsu's attempt at seeing who he's up against. "M-Mato! It's Mato-kabo!"

The pink-haired dragon slayer laughs. "Whatever you say, Matokabo!"

Much to Natsu and Wendy's horror, a small airship has been prepared to return the teams to their lodgings – the center of the maze doesn't have the roof, allowing the airship to fly over the maze and back to where they started.

Lucy looks out the window at the mages who are still working their way through the maze. "Wow, everyone looks like ants from up here! I wish we had our own airships!"

Erza takes in the view as well, brushing her hair out of her face. "Master says that he's planned to, but the airship budget keeps going towards covering the cost of repairing property damage."

Lucy chuckles nervously, realizing that such a line of reasoning should have been obvious. Destroying things is Fairy Tail's specialty, after all. "Oh, right…"

After a mercifully quick ride, Fairy Tail Team A returns to the apartment where they were staying. While Natsu and Gray excitedly babble about who they'll be up against, and what the events might be like this year, Lucy drifts off to sleep, relieved and exhausted. Nothing wakes her – not even when an argument over whether Natsu could beat Laxus turns violent, or when Erza knocks Natsu and Gray out, or when Erza climbs into Lucy's bed in the middle of the night, as is tradition when there's a sleepover.

After a hard-earned sleep, the Fairy Tail mages gather at Domus Flau, the traditional stadium for the event, around noon. Due to remodelling, the stadium had been significantly upgraded – not only was it much more durable now, but its size had expanded considerably, both to allow more room for the competition and more seating for spectators. Merchandise booths, run by both the organizers of the Games and the individual guilds themselves, are scattered throughout the arena, allowing fans to buy posters, figures, signs, and other memorabilia of their favourite mages and support the guilds. (The sole exception is merchandise featuring Gray Fullbuster, as every single piece was sold almost the exact moment that the stores opened to one especially dedicated buyer)

Despite the increased seating, the audience is jam-packed. In the royal gallery, Princess Hisui herself has arrived to watch the Games in person, along with their special guest Emperor Invel. Once most of the seats have been filled, Mato appears with a massive light show, gives his usual opening spiel about friendly competition, brotherhood, and the bonds between nations before moving on to introduce the teams.

"In eighth place, we have the stallions of the sky, the azure wings that sparkle in the darkness. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… BLUE PEGASUS!"

"MEEEEEENNNN~!" Ichiya is clearly no worse for the wear as he, the Trimens, and Jenny all strike matching poses. Sparkles are everywhere, dazzling the audience as they enter the arena and make their way toward the center.

In the commentators' booth, Chapati and Yazima have taken their usual places, along with guest commentator Nichiya, who had been too traumatized by his previous experience with the tournament to take part in this one. Yajima chuckles at the sight. "Flashy as always, aren't they?"

"As to be expected of such a manly team!" As tears stream down his face, Nichiya gives a thumbs up to the Blue Pegasus team as they reach the center. Somehow sensing this, Ichiya turns to give a thumbs up to the commentators' booth in response.

"In seventh place, we have the fairies who spread far and wide on their tiny wings, only to return to their home when we needed them the most! Our next team is… FAIRY TAIL TEAM A!"

Natsu raises his fist in the air as his team heads out, and this time, he gets the exact response that he had expected in the X791 Games. The crowd roars with approval, screaming the names of their favourite competitors from two years ago. "THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!" The cheering lasts long after they reach the center, and it takes a while for the crowd to calm down before Mato can continue.

"Sixth place is a guild we all know and love. The ferocious beasts have revealed a softer side, but almost nothing can stop the skill of… SABERTOOTH!"

Sabertooth's team walks out, greeted with cheers as loud as or louder than Fairy Tail's. Rogue, Orga, and Minerva were all expected, but to some surprise, the last two members of the team are Yukino and Sting.

Natsu points at Sabertooth as they make their way over. "Hey, wait a minute! I thought guild masters weren't allowed to participate!"

The pumpkin man looks shocked for a moment, but he pulls out a list from his pockets. "Actually, as of earlier this week, Rufus Lore was promoted to the guild master of Sabertooth. Since Sting is not the current guild master, he is allowed to compete-kabo. There aren't any rules about former guild masters competing – otherwise, Ms. Scarlet wouldn't be eligible either!"

Erza crosses her arms, thinking it over. "It seems a little underhanded, but it's still following the rules. I see no reason to oppose this decision."

In the crowds, Makarov looks shocked. A vision of a team consisting of himself, Gildarts, Erza, Mirajane, and Laxus flashes before his eyes before it vanishes into the void. "You mean we could have done that?!"

Yukino looks nervous as the Sabertooth mages reach the center. "The pressure of being the guild master will get to Rufus-san once the tournament's done, and he'll give the job back to Sting-san."

Minerva sighs dramatically, tilting her head back and placing her arm over her eyes. "Such is the curse of having an immature guild master, I'm afraid."

"Hey, I'm not immature! I just wanted to compete against Natsu-san again! It won't go as easily this time."

Natsu's look changes from annoyance to excitement, almost as if a switch was flipped. "Bring it! I've gotten way stronger too!"

Orga grumbles, a bit annoyed – both at their placement and at the fact that nobody seemed to be paying attention to him. "Too bad Rufus wasn't with us – he would have made the trip through the maze _much_ easier." Rogue doesn't say anything, preferring to stay out of the spotlight. Given that his future self was responsible for nearly destroying the royal capital the last time they competed, he'd rather not risk reminding people of that fact.

"In fifth place, we have the graceful women of the seas – MERMAID HEEL!" Unsurprisingly, the line-up was unchanged from their previous team in the Grand Magic Games. While Beth had been badly wounded during the fight against Alvarez, she had managed to make a full recovery. Most of the team keeps the same pace, but the dramatic effect is ruined somewhat as Millianna races across the field to give Erza a giant hug.

"Er-chan! I knew you'd make it!"

Erza chuckles, stroking Millianna's hair as the rest of her team makes it over. "Glad to see you too, Millianna."

"Erza." Kagura nods to her fellow sword fighter, blushing a bit. Memories, both of her actions in the previous Grand Magic Games and her attempts at making up for giving Jellal mouth-to-mouth by kissing Erza on the lips, come rushing back at the sight of the redhead.

Finding this behaviour adorable, Erza pulls Kagura into the hug as well. "I'm looking forward to this. Now we can have a friendly competition, instead of worrying about the past." Kagura's face becomes even redder, but she says nothing.

"Fourth place is the destroyers of the many-headed serpent… the warriors of love… LAMIA SCALE!" Their line-up remains the same as well, to the concern of many of the mages gathered. Some had hoped that Jura would be too busy with his duties on the Magic Council to take part, but clearly there was so little going on that he had no problem with making time for this.

As they reach the center of the arena, Chelia trips, falling flat on her face. Wendy rushes over to help, but stumbles over a rock and falls as well. This gets some laughter from the audience, but also scattered applause – given their youth, a lot of kids look up to those two, and they're both fairly popular competitors as a result. This is especially the case after their battle surpassed everyone's expectations and blew the audience away, no pun intended.

Lucy looks around the gathered mages, a little confused. "So who's left? I figure Mira's team made it, but there are two teams aside from that."

A shocked look appears on Natsu's face as he does a mental checklist of who's already present. "Maybe Quatro Cerberus got in the top three!"

Minerva, Yuka, and Arana stare at Natsu, dumbfounded. "Not possible." Given Quatro Cerberus's performance in previous years, it was clear that Bacchus was the only member who was even remotely competent.

"Our third place team is a newcomer to the Games. They only recently became a legal guild, but they made a huge impact in the war with Alvarez. They are the hunters of evil, the vanquishers of darkness… Here they are, at the Grand Magic Games for the first time, CRIME SORCIERE!"

"WHAT?!" Shock runs through all of the mages assembled, but nobody is more surprised than the mages of Fairy Tail. Even more surprising is the line-up. Meredy is to be expected, as is Hoteye, whose massive frame dwarfs the rest of his team. However, Cobra and Angel aren't exactly known for being team players, and even more surprising is that Jellal himself is getting directly involved.

Yajima looks down at his notes, announcing the justification for this to the arena. "Thanks to their efforts in the battle with Acnologia, along with their ceaseless attempts at saving the lives of countless Ishgar citizens, all members of Crime Sorciere were granted a pardon, and the guild gained its legal status."

Erza looks at Jellal, a little annoyed considering that she just called Sabertooth a little bit underhanded for having their master participate. "Aren't you the master of Crime Sorciere?"

"We are all equals at Crime Sorciere – we have no strict hierarchy." Jellal averts his gaze. "Though for the purposes of this tournament, Macbeth is officially considered the guild leader – he seemed the least likely to abuse that power." They glance at Macbeth, better known as Midnight, in the audience, who appears to be sleeping as Racer is sulking beside him.

Hoteye waves to the crowd, and miles away, in a small town, someone recognizes him on a massive vision lacrima that had been set up in the town square.

"R-Richard?" Tears run down the oddly polygonal face of Wally Buchanan as he realizes that he is looking at his brother. After he had been taken away from the Tower of Heaven, Wally had assumed that his brother had died, but even though the years had changed him, there was no mistaking that face. Immediately, he sets out to gather his few belongings and head for Crocus – no cost would be too great for him.

Back in the arena, Kagura clears her throat, and Jellal looks over to see her standing there. Millianna glares at Jellal, but says nothing as Kagura speaks to him. "Even if my opinion of you has changed, I will not hold back. I will not kill you, but I will do everything in my power to beat you."

Jellal nods. "Good. Keep that conviction – whatever helps you to fight at your best." He glances at Jura. "Hopefully, if we do get to fight, it won't be interrupted like last time."

"Last time?" Jura looks confused, but then it clicks. "Ah, Mystogan. You were quite a worthy adversary – what happened to make you give up?"

Meredy suddenly turns her head to look in another direction entirely as Jellal looks down at the ground. "It's… a long story."

"In second place, we have a guild whose strength is unquestionable, no matter how they fare in the rest of the tournament. After all, very few guilds qualify for the Grand Magic Games, and even fewer can claim to have two teams involved at the same time! It's the elite… FAIRY TAIL TEAM B!" One of the guards hands Mato a note. "Excuse me, I guess it's now FAIRY TAIL TEAM ONE!"

Gajeel, Laxus, Juvia, Mirajane, and Cana walk out, Gajeel cackling like a madman as he does so. Cana's already started drinking, much to the dismay of Laxus, and Mirajane gives a big wave to Fairy Tail's Team A from across the field.

"Glad to see we all made it!" Mira turns to face Jenny, a sweet smile on her face hiding something more sinister. "Glad to see you too, Jenny! Feeling up for any more wagers this year?" Jenny growls, but says nothing.

Orga grins, glad to see Laxus once again. "You didn't get to see the power of Lightning God Slayer Magic, but this year, I'll be happy to show you!" Laxus completely ignores Orga, staring into space. "Hey! Listen to me!"

Gajeel points at Rogue, grinning like always. "Oi, Ryos! You guys made it too, huh?"

"…I keep telling you, Gajeel-san, it's Rogue now." Rogue remains downcast and fairly quiet, despite Gajeel's obvious attempts to rile him up.

"Whatever you say, Rouge!"

"Meredy?! You should have said you'd be here!" Juvia runs over and gives Meredy a giant hug. Despite his attempts to remain stoic, Lyon starts blushing at the sight of the two women.

Meredy chuckles as she clutches Juvia, looking over at her team. "I would have, but _someone_ thought he would surprise Erza by showing up unannounced."

"Last, but certainly not least, we have our final team. They shattered all previous records into pieces by completing the preliminary round in eight seconds flat! You may not know their names, but you are undoubtedly aware of their strength!"

The gate for the final team opens, and the assembled mages stare in shock at the sight. There's no way that this could be happening, but the mages in question were too distinct-looking for it to be anyone else. The five mages cross the field, seemingly disinterested in the murmurs spreading through the crowd like wildfire as Mato continues his introduction.

"They are the winds of change, the imperial shields, and some of the strongest mages on the planet by any definition! They are… TEAM ALVAREZ!"

The war with Alvarez may have decimated the Spriggan Twelve, but the line-up is still a formidable one. Brandish is front and center, looking bored as always, with Ajeel Ramal and Dimaria Yesta on either side of her looking extremely smug. Rounding out the team are Jacob Lessio and Neinhart, who look more apprehensive about being in the tournament. Jacob keeps trying to avert his eyes from all of the scantily-clad women to no avail, and Neinhart is looking around nervously, clearly feeling like he was forced into this. Direct combat is not his strong suit by any stretch of the imagination, and in a straight-up fight, most of the mages assembled, even the little girls, could probably beat him.

"WHAT ARE THEY DOING HERE?!" Many of the mages, mostly the impulsive ones, yell out the question at the exact same time. Mato looks down at them, confused.

"Didn't you hear my speech? About brotherhood, the bonds between nations, and so on?" Many of the mages shrug and grumble – they had zoned out a bit, preparing for their introductions. "Perhaps a word from our special guest, Emperor Invel, will help to explain."

In the royal gallery, Invel stands, now decked out in the ceremonial robe of Alvarez's emperor. It was mostly a transitional role until a leader could officially be decided – as an immortal, Zeref had no reason to leave a last will and testament or name a successor – but seeing as Invel handled the day-to-day operations of the empire anyway when Zeref was off wandering around the world, he was a strong favourite to gain the position on a permanent basis.

Invel clears his throat before speaking into a microphone. "We agreed to participate in the Grand Magic Games to show that there are no hard feelings between our two nations. In spite of what may have happened between the mages of Alvarez and Ishgar, we can put that behind us and take part in a _friendly_ competition." He looks down at his own team as he puts emphasis on the word 'friendly' – clearly, some of them were less than eager to participate, or wanted to lord their supposed superiority over everyone else. "Building a bond of trust may take a long time, but hopefully this will give us the materials that we need to start."

Even though most of the mages are still unconvinced, Lucy walks over to Brandish, giving her a hug. Brandish returns it, despite Dimaria glaring daggers at Lucy behind her. "I'm so glad I get to see you again! I'll be sure to do my best, so no hard feelings no matter how this turns out."

Brandish's lips curve upwards in a small smile – barely visible, but for her, this is huge progress. "Right, no hard feelings." After squeezing the green haired mage tightly, Lucy returns to Fairy Tail Team A.

"Now that our teams have gathered, here is the schedule-kabo!" The pumpkin-headed mascot gestures to a massive screen beneath the royal gallery, where the order of events appears. Blank screens are beneath each of the days, their purpose unclear.

 **Day One: ? + 1 vs. 1**

 **Day Two: ? + 2 vs. 2**

 **Day Three: ? + 1 vs. 1**

 **Day Four: ? + 3 vs. 3**

 **Day Five: ? + FINALS**

" _YES!_ There are a lot of fights again!" Natsu cheers at that – he wasn't a fan of the specific events from previous years, given his bad luck to wind up competing in Chariot, but the fighting was consistently fun.

Jellal eyes up the specific matches. "The three versus three should be interesting. It's shortly before the finals, so we'll have to be careful there."

Ajeel narrows his eyes, already annoyed at the set-up of the games. "Why does this gotta be so dragged out? Just have us all fight right now, give Alvarez the trophy, and get it over with!"

Neinhart chortles at Ajeel's arrogance. "As I recall, didn't it take only _one_ of the mages assembled here to beat you? You shouldn't be overconfident, Ajeel."

"Look who's talking! You were beaten in one hit, fancy-pants! Why are you even here?"

Brandish points at both of them. "You're both giving me a headache. Be quiet." Realizing that it's probably best not to anger someone who should shrink them to the size of ants, the two Spriggans wisely decide to back down.

Mato continues once the mages and the crowd have quieted down. "As always, we'll have a one day break between the fourth and fifth day. Scoring is the same as last year – ten points for winning the battle portion, or five points each if the match isn't decided in thirty minutes. In the events, the first place team gets ten points, second gets eight points, third gets six points, and fourth gets four points. Every place below that gets one less point, with eighth getting zero."

Cobra shrugs, a bit annoyed at all of this – nobody said there would be math. "Seems way too complex, but as long as we win all of the events, we'll be fine."

"A quick refresher on the rules – killing is not allowed, and anyone who breaks this rule _will_ be responsible for the disqualification of their entire team. Outside interference and using illusions to alter the results of matches will not be allowed – this _should_ be obvious, but given the actions of a certain guild two years ago, we figured it best to specifically state this, and security will be paying closer attention to make sure that these rules are followed." Mato gestures to the crowd, where guards are scattered throughout with their helmets modified to contain special lenses. "Also, stopping time is forbidden, and there are spells in place to recognize if this happens."

"WHAT?!" Dimaria is fuming. "That's unfair! That literally only affects me! This competition is rigged!"

Brandish sighs, slightly amused at Dimaria's outburst. "…Actually, Invel suggested it. He said you relied too heavily on freezing time before and didn't use your abilities 'properly', so you'll have to figure out how to fight without it."

Ajeel laughs at Dimaria, clearly unsympathetic towards his teammate's plight. "That's what you get for not showing up to meetings!"

Unaware of Dimaria's rage or ignoring it, Mato continues. "This rule was put into place at the suggestion of Emperor Invel, and the royal family of Fiore saw no reason not to agree with it. It would certainly make for a dull match if everyone was defeated in an instant!"

Even finding out that her own ally is behind the ruling does nothing to change Dimaria's mood. "Invel, you _bastard!_ " Wendy, Kagura, and especially Chelia are taking a lot of enjoyment out of this particular ruling and Dimaria's reaction to it.

"As in previous years, spectators are allowed to vote on who they want to see compete! To get you wracking your brains about who you want to see battle it out, we will preview our first set of matches!" Below the listing for Day One, the names of various teams rapidly cycle, flashing by faster than most can follow. Eventually, one at a time, they come to a stop, settling on the schedule for the day's one-on-one matches.

 **Fairy Tail Team One vs. Lamia Scale**

 **Sabertooth vs. Blue Pegasus**

 **Crime Sorciere vs. Fairy Tail Team A**

 **Mermaid Heel vs. Alvarez**

"Every seat has a magical communication device attached, where you can vote on the eight fighters you would like to see! Many of these are familiar faces in the Grand Magic Games, so you can choose to re-enact old rivalries, set up matches that you wanted to see in previous years, or test any of our newcomers against an old favourite! The choice is yours, and the results will be shown once our first competition has been completed!"

From his seat, Makarov looks down at the arm-rest, which has a phone-like communication lacrima attached. The lacrima displays eight blank spaces with a "VS." symbol between them, and tapping on a space brings up a list of fighters for each team.

"With all of that in mind, let the first day of the X793 Grand Magic Games… BEGIN!"

 **Feel free to either use the reviews or private messages to vote for who you want to see in the match-ups! I'd prefer reviews so it's completely transparent in terms of who wins, but if you'd prefer to send a private message, go for it.**

 **I'm also willing to take suggestions as far as the competitions go (for example, Hidden or Chariot from the main series); I already have some planned out, but if someone has a better suggestion, I'll definitely incorporate it and credit whoever brought it up.**

 **Next time, the competition will finally begin! Depending on the length, each day may be spread out over several chapters, but we'll see how it goes based on the match-ups.**


	4. Magi-Go Kart

**Voting is going well so far! In the event of a tie, I'll go with whatever match sounds more interesting, or whatever description interested me the most. Also, some people are voting for multiple characters for a team, which is fine; it just leaves it open to interpretation on my end as to which one would be the most interesting to write about.**

 **I'm glad to read that some of you are looking forward to the 2 vs. 2 and 3 vs. 3 matches – I feel they'll be more difficult to write, but it should also be interesting to work with a wide variety of abilities (or throw in character combinations that work poorly together because of personalities and whatnot).**

Mato gestures to the center of the arena, where a platform rises out of the ground. "Teams, select your representative for the first event! The event will be revealed once we have all eight competitors."

Natsu leaps onto the platform without hesitation. "I'm going first! Gonna kick off this Grand Magic Games with a bang!"

Sting rushes on to the platform. "If Natsu-san's going, then I'm going!"

Mirajane looks at Gajeel and Laxus, a bit confused by the fact that they're rooted to the spot. "Aren't either of you going to go? I figured you'd be jumping at the chance to one-up Natsu."

Gajeel stares at the platform uneasily. "I don't know… Salamander and Sting getting on there so quickly seems like a bad omen."

Even Laxus looks a little nervous at that thought. "Yeah, maybe better to play it safe."

Juvia hops onto the platform. "Juvia will go, if Gajeel and Laxus don't want to! This way, maybe I won't be distracted by…" Her eyes focus on Fairy Tail's raven-haired ice mage as he complains that Natsu didn't even give them a chance to talk about who would go. "Gray-sama's… _incredible_ … body…" She shakes her head in an attempt to snap herself out of her trance, clenching her fists. "I can do this!"

Cracking his knuckles, Jacob gets on next. "I've got a score to settle with that unsophisticated pink-haired pervert."

Natsu points at Jacob, outraged at this attack on his character. "Look who's talking, Mr. 'I made an attack that makes clothing disappear'!"

Jacob glares at Natsu. "It's a legitimate battle strategy! It's called psychological warfare!" His posturing is undermined by the fact that he doesn't deny it.

Leaping into the air, Ichiya spins around several times before landing on the platform. "M-M-M-Meeeenn~! The smell of a competitive perfume is in the air, and Blue Pegasus will be the one to smell the gold this day!"

Risely steps on without much fanfare, not being as much of a ham as some of the other competitors. "I'll go first this time. Don't underestimate Mermaid Heel!"

"Hm… Competing with Natsu might be interesting." Jellal gets on, prompting Ichiya to point at him with both index fingers in an overly dramatic fashion.

"Jellal Fernandez… Even though you're my honey's honey, I will not hold back against you." Sparkles fly from Ichiya's body as the wind blows dramatically, but Jellal is just confused.

"…I have no idea what you're talking about." Jellal just stares as Ichiya continues to hold his pose for reasons known only to him. While all of this is going on, Yuka gets on without much fanfare – Lyon doesn't want to compete against Juvia, Jura is concerned that getting involved this early might be seen as unsportsmanlike on his part, and Chelia and Toby aren't budging.

"And we're set! All other mages, please evacuate the arena!" Not wanting to get caught up in whatever is going to happen, they quickly comply.

Once the arena is clear of everyone but the competitors, there's a sudden change. The platform begins to glow, and the eight mages are enveloped in beams of light that shoot up to the sky. The light is dazzling, blinding, and it spreads to engulf the arena itself.

When the light fades, the arena has been transformed into a complex roadway with hills, tunnels, and small ponds. The entire road loops, and small rainbow-coloured orbs are placed every so often along the track.

"Oh no…" Lucy moans, not liking the look of this set-up.

The light surrounding the mages fades, revealing that they have been placed inside small steel cars with no roofs. Natsu and Sting stare down in horror, while Jacob grins, clutching the steering wheel.

"Oh no…" Rogue sighs, looking at Sting bring his hands to his head and look around, as if begging someone else to take his place.

"Our first event will be… MAGI-GO KART!" Mato exclaims, as fireworks shoot off to signify the announcement.

"Oh noooooo!" Both Fairy Tail's A team and Sabertooth's team moan in unison as they realize that, yet again, Natsu and Sting have wound up in a challenge involving vehicles.

Meanwhile, Gajeel is just loving this, laughing hysterically at Natsu as the Fire Dragon Slayer tries not to vomit. "Gihihihihi! I knew this would happen, Salamander! Now you're gonna look like a fool in front of the whole world!"

Juvia shouts into the crowd, waving her arms over her head so Gajeel will notice her. "Juvia can switch with you, Gajeel, if you want!"

"Erk… No thanks." Not wanting to risk having that threat followed through with, Gajeel backs down. Juvia giggles, giving Natsu a thumbs-up, and Natsu shakily returns it.

Mato walks onto the platform, carrying a checkered flag that's larger than he is. "The rules are simple! The first person to complete a lap wins! …Also, getting out of your car, whether accidentally or on purpose, will result in a disqualification." Sting, who had been trying to fumble with the door handle, stops immediately. "The karts have SE-Plugs, which are attached to your arm. Under normal circumstances, these cars use your raw magical power to move them, but the rainbow orbs activate a special function when touched. Once that happens, the SE-Plugs have been modified to use your specific magic for a few moments! So Natsu touching it would give his car fire boosters…"

"Guh?" Natsu tries to focus, but he can barely keep his head up.

"…or Sting touching one would make his cart like a laser beam!"

"Buh…" Sting's forehead is pressed against the steering wheel.

"Causing another person's car to crash is completely fine, but keep in mind that you run the risk of your car crashing as well! While the idea of a race may seem simple, strategy is involved here just as it is in any competition, so plan your moves carefully!" Mato runs off to the side so he can get out of the way of the racers. "Everybody, count down with me!"

The crowd immediately gets into it, starting the countdown. "Three!"

The mages are just as enthusiastic, with the exceptions of Sabertooth and parts of Fairy Tail, who are dreading how this is going to turn out. "Two!"

"One!" Mato waves the flag in front of himself, nearly falling over from the weight. "GO!"

Six of the cars zoom off immediately, while Natsu and Sting's vehicles barely putter along. Since they're focusing most of their energy into not throwing up, the Dragon Slayers aren't able to transfer much of their own magical power into their carts.

Right off the bat, Jellal and Jacob clearly have the advantage – their massive magical power allows them to put more energy into their vehicles, though a bar near the steering wheel makes it clear that there's a limit to how much the cart can take at one time. Unfortunately for Jacob, Jellal is in a better position to grab the rainbow orb on the first turn, which causes the vehicle's horn to light up.

Up in the commentator's booth, Chapati grabs the edge of the table, easily excitable as always. "It looks like Jellal's gotten the first power boost! What will it do?"

Seeing no reason not to try it, Jellal presses down on the vehicle's horn, and this causes his car to be surrounded by a yellow glow. "It's Meteor!" Yajima stands up to get a better look. "This could either be very good, or extremely bad for Jellal. At that speed -"

Clearly, whatever Yajima had been concerned about wasn't an issue for Jellal. His car rockets off, becoming a yellow blur that zooms through the race track. As he is used to traveling at such speeds on a normal basis, it's easier for him to maneuver the car when it's traveling that fast than it would be for most people. By the time the power boost wears off, he's already halfway done the lap, and the distance between him and the other racers is only increasing.

The crowd isn't sure how to react to that, but the Crime Sorciere team, as well as Erza, are cheering loud enough to make up for the half-hearted applause. When Erza looks around and realizes that she's one of the few people cheering, she blushes, looking more annoyed than anything. Still, she'll have to stop by the merchandise booths at some point – now that the full line-up has been revealed, they're bound to make Jellal-based collectibles over the course of the tournament.

Aside from Jellal, who is significantly ahead of everyone else, and Natsu and Sting, who have barely crossed the starting line, the other racers are grouped together. Jacob is gradually pulling ahead, while Risely, Juvia, Yuka, and Ichiya are competing for third. After the second turn, there's another rainbow orb – Jacob is at a bad position to get it, though his raw magic power and surprising skill with driving more than make up for that, but Ichiya manages to hit it.

"Take this!" Hitting the horn, Ichiya grins as his vehicle shoots out a cloud of perfume, blinding the surrounding racers and filling their noses with the strong scent.

Yajima looks down at the racetrack, slightly amused as the other racers plug their noses and shut their eyes. "That seems a little vulgar, does it not?"

Meanwhile, Nichiya is really getting into his commentary duties now. "Ichiya has dazzled his opponents with his manly perfume! None can stand up to such a devastating assault!"

Ichiya points to the crowd. "I do this for all of the sweet-smelling ladies of the world!" Unfortunately, he's too absorbed in his speech to pay attention to the road, driving straight off of it and into one of the ponds.

Nichiya grabs the microphone, shocked at this sudden and dramatic turn of events. "ICHIYA, NOOOO!" Ichiya manages to drive his vehicle in reverse and get out of the water, but by this point, the others are well ahead of him. The only exceptions, of course, would be Natsu and Sting, who are nearing the first turn.

Lucy pulls at her hair as she watches her teammate, annoyed that things worked out this way yet again. "This is the worst!"

Beside her, Erza shakes her head. "It could be worse. At least they don't have to do three laps."

Wendy shudders. "We'd be here all day if they had to do that…" She does not envy Natsu's current situation, though the same could be said for any of the other five Dragon Slayers who are present.

It's not long before Jacob drives through a rainbow orb, and he immediately hits the button, excited to finally get one. Chapati looks down at his notes. "Reports say that Jacob's magic makes him or any object he's holding completely invisible. While that might be useful for some missions, I'm not sure how making his cart invisible would help with…"

However, Jacob's cart isn't what becomes invisible when his power activates. It starts out slowly, spreading out from where his cart was when he activated the ability, but soon, the entire track has seemingly vanished, leaving the drivers racing around on the dirt that normally makes up the stadium.

"W-What kind of magical power must this man have?!" Yajima stares at the arena, shocked. Despite appearances, it's clear that the track and everything on it is still there – Yuka's car slows down considerably as he unknowingly drives on to the grass, and there's another splash as Ichiya drives into an invisible pond. The only one unbothered by this is seemingly Jacob, who drives under the tunnel that was ahead of him, making a sharp turn flawlessly, and going over the bridge without any issues.

Dimaria stares in shock, surprised by what she's seeing. "Has Jacob always been this good at this kind of thing?"

Ajeel nods. "Before he met Lord Zeref, Jacob transported goods through the desert. If you weren't skilled at driving, the bandits would get you, but people like him were the only way that villages like mine could survive. Between his skill with driving and his track record of always making his delivery, we gave him the nickname… the Deliveryman."

Brandish looks at Ajeel, amused – that's the closest thing to a humble statement that she's ever heard from the sand mage. "Huh. Still, I figured you were going to say that you called him the Transpor-"

"AND JELLAL WINS!" Despite not being able to see the road, Jellal's advantage is insurmountable, and he crosses the finish line well ahead of everyone else. "Ten points go to Crime Sorciere!" The scoreboard adjusts to reflect this, with Crime Sorciere's name moving up to the top. The cheers from the general audience are louder this time, though still nothing compared to the members of Crime Sorciere and Fairy Tail.

Risely and Juvia are neck and neck as they come to the tunnel, but Risely rams Juvia's car to the side so the Mermaid Heel mage can get the power-up. "Don't underestimate my magic!" Activating the special ability, Risely and her cart both change, becoming thinner and much lighter. The vehicle moves much faster as a result, allowing her to gain some ground on Jacob.

After the tunnel and the bridge, the track is fairly straightforward – only a few turns and a straightaway remain before the end of the track. Power-ups are more plentiful towards the end, but they're also more difficult to get, as they are moving side to side across the road. "Juvia must get one… for Fairy Tail, her team, and Gray-sama!" Drifting into one of the power-up orbs, Juvia presses the horn immediately, causing an arching pathway of water to extend from Juvia's location to the nearest pond. This pathway bounces along each pond in the nearby area, and her cart travels faster when on it.

As Juvia takes the pathway, quickly gaining ground on the other racers due to cutting corners, Yuka steers towards it. "Thank you for the shortcut!" …Unfortunately, it's quickly made clear that only Juvia's cart can use this pathway, as he passes through the watery path and gets soaked for his troubles. He does manage to get a power-up, but Ichiya has managed to catch up to him while he was distracted.

Jacob crosses the finish line, earning Alvarez eight points and leaving Risely as the only one left on the straightaway. "Yeah!" Risely raises a fist into the air in celebration – sure, she didn't win, but when competing against a former Wizard Saint and one of the Spriggan Twelve, getting third place is the closest most people could get to coming in first.

Out of nowhere, at least from her perspective, a floating river drops Juvia off in front of her. Try as she might, she can't catch up, and Juvia passes the finish line before her. "That's six points for Fairy Tail Team One, and four for Mermaid Heel!" Risely slumps over in her cart, disappointed and embarrassed for celebrating too soon.

Now there are only four racers left, with the only real question being whether Ichiya or Yuka are going to be the one to finish first. Ichiya has a pretty clear advantage – despite his countless weaknesses, he does have significantly more magic power than Yuka, allowing him to put distance between them quite quickly. "And it looks like the manliest competitor, Ichiya, will finish fifth!" Nichiya speaks too soon, however, as Yuka activates his power, sending out an anti-magic pulse that temporarily shuts down Ichiya's cart. This gives the large-eyebrowed Lamia Scale mage enough time to cross the finish line, with Ichiya finishing soon after, dejected at effectively coming in last out of the racers who could actually compete.

With that, the only two racers remaining are Sting and Natsu, who have barely made it past the second turn by this point. The two carts are ramming into each other, which would be dramatic if they were moving so slow that people could walk faster than them.

"I'm gonna win…" Natsu swats at the steering wheel, 'ramming' his vehicle into Sting's.

"No, I'm gonna win…" Sting responds in kind. The two vehicles are practically jammed together, making them move even slower than they already were.

Chapati may enjoy commentating on the games, but this is just sad. "Can't we just end this now?"

Mato shakes his head. "We keep going until one of them is disqualified or finishes the race – those are the rules!"

Sting tries to ram Natsu again, but Natsu hits the brake pedal, causing Sting to make a hard left in front of Natsu and head off-course. "Nooooooo…" Sting tries to steer back, but he can't gather the strength to turn the wheel that far. Driving over a small ridge, the vehicle tumbles over and he falls out of it. Relieved, he clambers to his feet, glad to finally be free of that mobile torture chamber.

Nichiya screams into the microphone, trying to make this sound as dramatic as possible. "Sting is disqualified! Natsu gets seventh by default, getting a single point for Fairy Tail's A Team!" There's a polite, but awkward, smattering of applause as Natsu raises his hands in the air triumphantly… before throwing up over the side of the car.

In a massive flash of light, the racetrack and the carts vanish, leaving Natsu and Sting standing in the dirt that usually occupies the arena. Finally free, they rush off the field as Mato works his way towards the center of it. The scoreboard is quickly updated to reflect the results of the first event.

 **Crime Sorciere: 10**

 **Alvarez: 8**

 **Fairy Tail One: 6**

 **Mermaid Heel: 4**

 **Lamia Scale: 3**

 **Blue Pegasus: 2**

 **Fairy Tail A: 1**

 **Sabertooth: 0**

"And now, here are the results for your first match of the day!" On the schedule, the screen changes, showing ten different bars going up and down with the faces of each mage on Fairy Tail's Team One and Lamia Scale's team above them. "The people voted, and an overwhelming majority want to see…"

Laxus and Jura stand up in preparation – Laxus is smirking confidently with his arms crossed in front of his chest, while Jura looks completely serious.

"…Lyon Vastia vs. Juvia Lockser!" While Laxus and Jura have a commendable number of votes (about a quarter each), and Mirajane and Chelia also have their fair share of fans, getting fifteen percent or so, over half of the votes cast went towards Lyon and Juvia.

Yajima chuckles as Laxus sits back down, the Lightning Dragon Slayer looking annoyed and more than a little embarrassed. "It's no surprise – Lyon has always been quite popular among fans of Lamia Scale, and between Juvia's bad luck in her previous competition and her performance just now, the people want to see more." Jura also sits back down, but he actually looks slightly relieved – the stadium had just been rebuilt, and he doesn't want to be responsible for destroying it in his fight with Laxus.

Nichiya may not be as enthusiastic now as he is when Blue Pegasus is involved, but he does have something to share for this one. "Rumours from manly sources state that Lyon has a crush on Juvia! How might this affect this conflict?"

Chapati stares blankly at the cat. "Why do the sources have to be manly? …Anyway, perhaps Lyon will go all-out to show Juvia that he's stronger than the object of her affections, who sources claim to be Gray. Personally, I wanted to see Chelia get involved, but I guess there's always next round…" Chapati slumps over, sighing – now that the results of the voting have been revealed, he's lost some of his vigour.

Lyon and Juvia step into the arena, with Juvia ready to fight. Before they can begin, Lyon holds out a hand. "While it pains me to attack a woman of such grace and beauty, I must set my feelings aside. I am afraid that my heart belongs to another, and in front of her, I cannot lose." As he says this, Lyon instinctively throws off his jacket, leaving him bare-chested.

Blushing, Juvia points at him. "Your actions betray your words! You're trying to tempt me away from Gray-sama! But Gray-sama's body is much better. … _Or_ you're trying to seduce Gray-sama and take him for yourself! I won't let you!" In the crowd, Gray slaps his forehead, having no idea how any of this has happened.

Now it's Lyon's turn to blush, his cheeks glowing red in contrast with his white hair. "What? No! I may have loved you once, but I now know where your affections lie! My one true love is your pink-haired friend…"

"Virgo? Juvia and Virgo aren't exactly _friends_ , but Virgo _did_ give Juvia tips on how to win Gray-sama's heart!" In the crowd, Lucy shivers, not wanting to know what those tips are. She is well aware of Virgo's masochistic leanings, though the same could be said about everyone who's ever been in the same room as the submissive spirit.

"The Celestial Spirit?" Lyon shakes his head. "No, though my love does indeed look heavenly."

"Oh, so you must be after Natsu!" Today has revealed so much about Lyon, in Juvia's mind. She'll have to update her relationship charts later.

Lyon balks at that statement. " _Never_! The one I speak of is Mer-"

Gray interrupts Lyon, yelling over the crowd. "Just fight, already!"

The blue-haired water mage turns to salute Gray in the crowd. "Yes, Gray-sama!" Turning back to face Lyon, her body shifts into its combat-ready watery state.

Lyon gets into the stance that Ur had taught him so long ago, grimacing as he does so. "I do not want to fight you, Juvia, but for Lamia Scale, and my beloved, I will triumph!" He holds out his hand, gathering magic into it. "Ice Make Eagle!" Several birds made from ice fly out of his open palm, but they fly harmlessly through Juvia's body.

"Water Cyclone!" Not having any water to use this power in, Juvia uses the water that makes up her own body. Turning into a spinning column of water, she launches herself at Lyon, who nimbly dodges to the side.

"I've got you now! Ice Make…" Lyon reaches out to try and freeze Juvia, but rather than feeling water like he expects, his hand grabs something soft instead.

"Juvia's butt…" Indeed, Juvia had reformed, and that was where Lyon happened to reach. Lyon's face may be bright red, but as he tries to stammer out apologies, it's Juvia who's steaming - literally. "You dare to touch Juvia's butt in front of Gray-sama? Only Gray-sama can touch Juvia's butt! Feel fortunate that you are facing Juvia, for Gray-sama would punish you much worse than this!"

Gray's face is red as well as he calls out from the crowd. "H-Hey! Don't give people any ideas about me!"

"I-I didn't mean to do that!" Lyon yelps, embarrassed for having done such a thing. "I need a time-out. Ice Geyser!" Hitting the ground in front of him, he creates a wall of ice that comes out of the ground beneath Juvia. Reflexively, Juvia changes into her water form, but that just makes it worse, trapping her inside the ice structure. The ice gradually melts as Juvia's rage causes her body to boil, but it allows Lyon to get some distance.

By the time that the Ice Geyser has melted to a puddle, Lyon has finished gathering magic for his next attack. "I cannot risk close combat, so fighting from a distance will have to do. Ice Make… Blizzard!" Raising his hand into the air, the temperature in the arena suddenly changes. Snow starts to fall from the sky, and opportunistic merchants start selling coats, hats, and scarves to the front rows of the audience. The effect is limited, mainly covering the area where the fighters are, but the sudden and drastic change in temperature causes Juvia to shiver. "And Ice Make Water Serpent!" As Juvia is distracted by the cold, Lyon launches several intertwining snakes made of ice, which spiral around each other as they launch towards Juvia.

The barrage of cold and ice pushes Juvia back, and seeing this, Gray stands up. "Come on, Juvia! You can do better than this! Show everyone how strong you are!"

Juvia's train of thought upon hearing this is unusual, to say the least. _Show everyone how strong I am? And Gray-sama is strong – he must want me to show everyone that we are meant to be together! To show the strength to fend off any love rivals! I will not fail Gray-sama!_ Rejuvenated by this, Juvia's body starts to boil again – not out of rage, but out of passion.

"Sierra!" Juvia dashes through Lyon's serpents, using them like a pathway to reach the exhibitionist mage. Bursting out of one of the sculptures, she places a boiling hot hand on Lyon's chest. "Water Lock!" Much like her body, the water that forms in a bubble around Lyon is boiling, and Lyon screams – he had been trained to resist cold, but heat is another story.

Screaming tends to not be the best thing to do when surrounded by water, and his consciousness quickly fades. As his sight goes dim, he focuses on Meredy in the crowd. _I'm sorry, my beloved – I have failed you._

Juvia's Water Lock deactivates, and Lyon falls to the ground, knocked out. "Lyon Vastia is breathing, but he can no longer move! Ten points for Fairy Tail Team One!" The crowd erupts in cheers, with the Fairy Tail sections (of course) cheering the loudest. Meredy is also cheering quite loudly at the sight of her friend's victory, a stark contrast to her former gloomy and quiet personality.

As Juvia runs over to try and hug Gray and the Lamia Scale team heads over to Lyon so Chelia can heal him, the crowd settles down. Meredy returns to her seat, pondering something that was left unanswered. "I wonder which of Juvia's friends that Lyon guy had a crush on…"

 **Voting is still ongoing for the other three matches (Sabertooth vs. Blue Pegasus, Crime Sorciere vs. Fairy Tail team A (Natsu's team), and Mermaid Heel vs. Alvarez), but with Lyon vs. Juvia appearing to be the favourite, I figured I'd write that now. I could include more fights, but this chapter was getting fairly long as-is, and I already had an idea for how Lyon vs. Juvia would go down.**

 **Seeing as Mashima based Jacob on Jason Statham, I couldn't resist slipping in a reference to one of Statham's movies. I don't** _ **think**_ **I'll be able to work in a reference to Crank, the Mechanic, or the Expendables, but if he comes up again, I'll see what I can do!**

 **Next chapter should finish up the fights in round one. I don't know if I'll consistently be able to crank out chapters every three days or so, but I'll generally try to give time for people to vote on these match-ups.**


	5. Love and War

**A lot of close matches this time, but we're finally ready to wrap up the first round! Obviously, the most excitement seems to be surrounding the match between Fairy Tail Team A and Crime Sorciere, so that's going to get the lion's share of the focus. Still, I hope to do all of the characters justice!**

Once the field is cleared, Mato returns to announce the next set of fighters. "Next up, we have Sabertooth vs. Blue Pegasus! While Sabertooth has a long track record of winning this competition, Ichiya of the Blue Pegasus guild is famous for single-handedly forcing Acnologia himself into a hole in time and space, so this is bound to be an interesting match-up!" The Ichiya part was a bit of an exaggeration, to be sure, but it would do its job in terms of getting people excited for what's to come.

Once again, the bars appear, rapidly moving up and down as the votes are tabulated. "And the fight is between…" They come to a stop – on Sabertooth's side, Minerva has a decent lead over Yukino and Rogue, with not many people voting for Sting or Orga relatively speaking. Meanwhile, when it comes to Blue Pegasus, all of the members have roughly equal votes – a testament to the popularity of each member of the guild. One of the bars barely edges out the others, though…

"…Minerva Orland and Ren Akatsuki!" With a satisfied smirk, Minerva leaps gracefully into the arena, as Ren uses his air magic to float down.

As the two of them face off, Ren blushes, looking down at the ground. "I apologize. While you are a beautiful woman, my affections must be focused on the one I'm resigned to be with for my entire life."

Sherry, well aware that this is Ren's strange way of expressing affection, squeals with joy from the Blue Pegasus section of the stands and cheers for her husband. "Come on, honey! You can beat her!"

Ren looks at Sherry in the crowd, a small smile on his face. "It's not like you need to worry, but I can't afford to look uncool when you're watching me."

Minerva watches Ren with a smirk on her face and an eyebrow raised in amusement. "It seems too early for me to demonstrate my full power. I suppose it's best to end this quickly."

It happens in a flash – one moment, Ren is standing there, and the next, the air explodes around him as he's launched back into the section of the crowd that's reserved for Blue Pegasus's team, unconscious. Sherry shrieks, running over to make sure he's okay as Ichiya tries to use his Pain Relieving Perfume to revive his teammate.

There's a pause as the crowd takes time to register the sudden end to the fight. However, they quickly break out in cheers as Minerva exits the battlefield.

Mato walks out again, visibly nervous despite wearing a full face mask. "Wow - that was fast-kabo! Just as expected from Sabertooth! Let's see, next we have…"

Once more, the votes total up, as the crowd is on the edge of their seats. Fairy Tail's teams were favourites, of course, and while the mages of Crime Sorciere were unknowns to most of the people present, any guild that could have made enough of a difference in the battles with Alvarez and Acnologia to get a full pardon would be a guild that's worth paying attention to.

The seconds feel like minutes, especially for the teams in question, but the bars come to a stop, showing one member of each team having a commanding lead over their teammates. "…Erza Scarlet versus Jellal Fernandez! Come on down!"

Indeed, the two of them were well above their teammates in terms of votes, though Natsu came close to Erza's total. It's not really a surprise, between Erza's general notoriety and Jellal's one-sided victory in the go kart race, but seeing those results still leaves a lump in their throats. Looking across the stadium, they gaze into each other's eyes, neither one particularly eager to fight given their history.

"Ahem… I said, come on down!" Resigning themselves to the fact that they will have to do this, both mages head down the stairs and into the arena.

As they cross the field, Chapati turns to Yajima. "How do you think this match will turn out?"

Yajima gives a small smile as he watches Erza and Jellal. "They're both very powerful mages, without a doubt. No matter the outcome, it's bound to be an… interesting match-up."

Erza and Jellal meet in the middle to have a brief chat before they begin. Jellal avoids Erza's gaze, as though he finds a patch of sand less intimidating to look at. "I can surrender, to make this easier."

Erza shakes her head. "No, that wouldn't go over well. I don't want people mocking you – even Sting got a few jeers when he surrendered to us, despite his reputation, and you don't have that kind of history with this competition."

The blue haired mage sighs. "Fine, I'll hold back. Make it look like I'm trying, but I'll let you win."

The redhead's glare intensifies. " _I_ can't allow that one. If you don't go all out, even against me, then you're undermining everything that we've fought and bled for. You've earned your chance to walk in the light, so show everyone, those in the light and those hiding in the darkness, what you are capable of." Erza isn't the type to hold back under any circumstance, so she sees no reason why Jellal shouldn't do that as well.

"Erza…" Jellal nods, his expression turning serious. "All right. I'll stop before I seriously hurt you. Perhaps we need a signal word to make it clear that we're going too far…" He's not sure what their safe word should be, though - maybe 'strawberry'?

Erza sighs, summoning a sword into her hand. "That seems too complicated. Let's just fight."

"R-Right." A yellow glow surrounds Jellal's hand.

Letting out a scream, Erza dashes at Jellal, swinging her sword at him with quick and precise strikes. Jellal doesn't counter-attack, though, leaping out of the way and dodging rather than fighting back. Once he gets enough distance between them, his body becomes surrounded by the familiar yellow glow of Meteor and he dashes forward. Caught off-guard, Erza is hit in the chest by Jellal's blow (and now, more than ever, Jellal is grateful that Erza generally wears plate-armour – landing face first in her chest in the middle of a fight wouldn't be the most dignified position) and knocked back.

Skidding to a stop, Erza changes armours, switching to her Heaven's Wheel armour before launching a whirling storm of swords at Jellal. The blue haired mage does his best to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge around the blades, but some of them manage to cause superficial wounds.

The barrage ends, but Jellal has no time to appreciate it before Erza dashes right behind the swords, wielding a massive lance. With no time to react, Jellal is hit in the stomach by the blow, which launches him into the walls of the stadium. The crowd quickly gets out of the way as Jellal leaps out of the hole in the wall, covered in light.

Despite his wounds, Jellal can't help but smile. "Just what I'd expect from Fairy Tail's Titania. Now it's my turn to show what I'm capable of." As he floats to the ground, nine swords made from lightning appear behind him, floating similar to the weapons that Erza uses in her Heaven's Wheel armour. "Jiu Leixing!"

Erza summons nine swords of her own, and the two stare each other down, waiting to see who will make the first move. With a wave of his hands, Jellal launches the lightning swords at Erza. Acting quickly, Erza telekinetically sends her swords to intercept, with most of the swords hitting a lightning sword, causing the lightning to dissipate and the sword to fall to the ground.

However, a single sword passes through the air, since Jellal didn't send _all_ of his swords at Erza. Rather, he kept one of them close by, leaping into the air and stabbing it at Erza when he gets close. The shock passes through Erza's body, and she grits her teeth as the pain courses through her – if there's one thing that Laxus's uprising and Kyouka's torture helped her with, it's resisting electricity.

As Erza is standing there, trying to fight off the pain, Jellal hold out his arms, placing both hands on top of each other. "I'm sorry, but you did want me to go all-out. I'll make it up to you, I promise." With that, his hands start to glow, and a dipper-like sign appears in the air. Erza tries to will her body to move, but she can't budge.

The lights in the sky flash before plummeting to the ground as beams, setting off massive explosions in front of Jellal. "Grand Chariot!" The noise is almost deafening, and the light is blinding. For about half a minute, the crowd has trouble seeing, and many of them (especially those up close, who are really regretting buying front row seats by now) have a sharp ringing in their ears.

Most of the audience is shocked at the sight before them. However, to the surprise of none of the mages gathered, especially Fairy Tail, Kagura, and Jellal himself, Erza is still standing after taking a direct hit from Grand Chariot. She's battered and bleeding, and her Heaven's Wheel armour is worse for the wear, but she continues to stand tall. Wordlessly, she shifts to her Flight Armour, causing what seems like most of the blood in Jellal's body to rush to his face. Even with her injuries, the sight of Erza standing in front of him with so much skin exposed, especially her chest and stomach, is almost too much to bear.

"Um… Are you sure you want to use _that_ armour?" As Jellal stammers, Erza looks down at it blankly, not seeing the problem.

"Of course – it's stylish, and it increases my speed significantly." Erza looks back up at Jellal, a smirk on her face. Jellal smiles back, despite his face being about the same shade of red as Erza's hair; if it's a test of speed she wants…

Surrounding himself with the tell-tale glow of Meteor, Jellal dashes forward as Erza does the same. The two of them collide, and then practically vanish. Some of the people gathered here can follow what's going on, but for the most part, all that can be seen are red and yellow blurs zooming around the arena, occasionally smashing together and creating shockwaves.

"Impressive – there aren't many people who can keep up with Meteor!" Jellal calls out as Erza blocks one of his strikes with a sword.

"Second Origin helped," Erza admits as they break off from each other again. "Besides, I'm not going to fall behind anyone – not if I can help it, anyway." Summoning a spear into her hands, she jabs it into the ground. Jellal dashes towards her, but grabbing onto the spear's shaft with both hands, she spins around on it, looking like a small tornado to most onlookers. Jellal can't stop himself quickly enough, and he gets kicked in the face when he gets too close.

Jellal flies back, but flips in the air to land on his feet as Erza's feet hit the ground. "I was hoping to avoid using this, but it's better than the alternative. I mean no offense by not using Sema, but I've only just been pardoned, and I'd hate to undo that by destroying the stadium on my first day." Jellal floats into the air, combining Heavenly Body magic with earth magic. Rocks about the size of a human torso appear in the air in front of Jellal, glowing with a yellow light. "Artificial Celestial Body Magic: Sema Parvus!"

The light surrounding the rocks gets brighter as they hurtle towards the ground, like actual meteors. While not as powerful as Sema, it is much easier to aim and target, not to mention being less taxing on magic power. The false meteors hit the ground, causing explosions that leave craters all over the arena floor, but Jellal isn't done. As the rocks fall to the earth, new ones are summoned to take their place, creating a seemingly never-ending shower of meteors.

"This is incredible! We haven't seen something like this in the Grand Magic Games since Mystogan fought Jura! How can Erza withstand such an extraordinary display?" Chapati is standing up at his table, shocked at what he's seeing.

Yajima points out something on the battlefield. "She doesn't have to _withstand_ it…"

Nichiya follows Yajima's finger, and his eyes bulge out of his head as he realizes what he's seeing. "Wait, is she…"

Rather than stay on the ground, Erza dodged the initial salvo, and after seeing that the meteors were being replenished, she jumped onto one as it was falling, hopping from one to the other as though they were stepping stones using her increased speed and agility. The projectiles shatter once she makes contact with them, but she's on them for such a short time that it doesn't matter to her.

Jellal can't help but blush at the sight of Erza hopping up meteors towards him, clad in an outfit that leaves very little to the imagination, but letting out a battle cry, he raises his hands into the air. "Pleiades!" Six rays of light shoot from his hands, flying into the air and launching themselves at Erza.

Leaping off of one last meteor, Erza narrowly twists in the air to avoid one of those beams of light, her momentum carrying her towards Jellal. "This is it!" She passes by Jellal, her sword striking his chest as he does so. For a moment, the two seem to stay suspended in midair – the crowd gasps, watching closely to see what will happen next.

After a moment that felt like an eternity, Jellal turns, his hands readied to use magic again. Facing away from him, Erza is seemingly in no position to defend herself from another attack. However, before he can cast anything, Jellal doubles over and falls towards the ground.

 _As strong… and as beautiful… as ever._ Even though he lost, Jellal can't help but smile as he hears the crowd cheering and chanting Erza's name. He can barely make out the ground as it gets closer and closer, but suddenly, his descent stops. Turning his head, he sees Erza, clad in her Black Wing armour and smiling at him as she holds him bridal style and slows their descent.

Jellal chuckles as he looks up at Erza. "I suppose its fate that I lost – I haven't done anything to earn the adoration of the crowd."

A sad expression on her face, Erza shakes her head. "You've done more than enough. You're one of the most kind-hearted people I know – you don't need to torture yourself any longer. Besides, you earned _my_ adoration long ago."

"Erza…" Jellal reaches up, caressing her cheek as Erza lands on the ground. Their tender moment is interrupted, however, by Mato clearing his throat into the microphone, giving them both a sudden reminder that they're still very much in public. Both of them blushing heavily, Erza carries Jellal over to Crime Sorciere's seats before dashing back to her own.

"What a match! Don't worry; we'll have the stadium fixed by tomorrow. And now, it's time for…" The bar graph for the Mermaid Heel and Alvarez mages evens out – the Alvarez side is fairly spread out, since most of the audience has no real affection for any of them. However, Dimaria has a few more votes than her fellow Alvarez citizens. On the other side, it's Risely who has the lead – the Mermaid Heel mages are all fairly popular, but there's enough sympathy for her thanks to how the most recent event turned out to make a difference. "…RISELY LAW VERSUS DIMARIA YESTA!"

As the two women enter the arena, Risely looks nervous, while Dimaria looks bored. "It's a shame. I was hoping I'd be matched up with that cutie Kagura, or that cat mage. Is it true that her magic ties people up?"

Risely glares, though she's still visibly sweating – from what little she saw of Dimaria, she's bound to be a tough opponent, though hearing that a lot of her strength came from time stopping abilities that she's no longer allowed to use gives her some confident. "Don't underestimate a mage of Mermaid Heel!"

"Underestimate?" Dimaria starts laughing hysterically at that. The crowd is silent as her cruel laughter echoes throughout the stadium. "If anything, I'm _overestimating_ you by putting any effort into this farce! I mean, look at you! Your face is kind of cute, but your magic power isn't much to talk about, and you're too chubby for my tastes."

The time mage would quickly come to regret that last remark, as all of a sudden, she is forced to the ground, feeling a massive invisible weight on her back. "Don't… mock… my… WEIGHT!" Using her gravity magic, Risely triples the gravity in the area where Dimaria is standing.

Despite being caught off-guard, Dimaria is still one of the Spriggan Twelve, and her magic power is so high that she is able to resist the effect and start crawling out of the area. "You'll pay for this, worm!"

Using her gravity magic on herself, Risely becomes slimmer and lighter, leaping into the air. "After all, if I didn't have this weight…" While in high in the air, she reverses the spell on herself, returning to her normal size and increasing the effect that gravity has on her. "…I wouldn't be able to do _this_!"

Like one of Jellal's meteors, Risely plummets to the ground, landing squarely on Dimaria's back. The impact leaves a crater, sending smoke and sand flying into the air. The audience shields their eyes from the sudden dust storm, though they try their best to catch a glimpse what the outcome is.

When the smoke finally clears, Risely is sitting down, clearly relieved and under the impression that it's over. However, Dimaria isn't one of the Spriggan Twelve for nothing, and she's still climbing to her feet.

"I wasn't going to bother with using my sword on the likes of you… but now let's see if this balloon will pop!" Dimaria dashes forward, preparing to stab at Risely, but the Mermaid Heel mage ducks under Dimaria's blade.

"Looks like your skill with the sword came from your time stopping… 'cause Kagura's training makes that attack look like a joke!" Lowering the gravity right in front of her, Risely uppercuts Dimaria, the blow landing right on her jaw. With gravity lowered, the blonde is sent flying into the air, and when she reaches the peak of her ascent, Risely increases the gravity surrounding Dimaria instead.

There's nothing Dimaria can do to stop her descent, and she crashes into the ground at top speed. Barely conscious, she curses herself for the match turning out like this. _I'm one of the Spriggan! How could I lose?! It's all that idiot Invel's fault…_ Then it hits her – if she lost to someone like this just because she didn't consider them a threat, how's she going to fare against the strong opponents? _No, I have to get stronger, or get better with my sword. I can't let that cutie Kagura, or her red-headed friend, show me up if we have to duel…_

While Ajeel and Jacob are annoyed at having Alvarez's reputation damaged so publicly, Brandish just watches with boredom as Risely is declared the winner. "Figures… She doesn't take anything seriously…"

"On that note, the first day has completed! Let's look at our scores!" Mato gestures to the scoreboard, where the ten points for Mermaid Heel's victory have been added.

 **Fairy Tail One: 16**

 **Mermaid Heel: 14**

 **Fairy Tail A: 11**

 **Crime Sorciere: 10**

 **Sabertooth: 10**

 **Alvarez: 8**

 **Lamia Scale: 3**

 **Blue Pegasus: 2**

"What a close one! Fairy Tail is off to a much better start than the last time they competed in these games, but can they keep up this momentum? There are plenty of formidable mages competing in this year's tournament, as you have undoubtedly seen, and it only takes a single event or match for the tables to turn completely! Have a good night, and be sure to return tomorrow for the second day of the competition, where we are bound to see more spell-binding excitement!" Mato waves goodbye as the crowd begins to disperse.

Natsu, Lucy, Gray, and Wendy cheer, celebrating their good fortune, with Erza throwing out a much hastier cheer before rushing off to the nearest merchandise booth to pre-order any Jellal merchandise that they'll making over the course of the tournament. "That was amazing! We've got our work cut out for us, but it's still looking a lot better than last time!" Lucy's cautiously optimistic about this, but it's a much better feeling to come out of the first day towards the top as opposed to dead last.

Natsu can't help but grumble a little. "Why'd it have to be cars? If it was a foot race, we'd have twenty points right now!"

"…You have seen Jellal, right? No matter what kind of race it was, he would've come in first." Sometimes, Gray can't believe Natsu's implausible confidence.

"Not if it was a three-legged race! Hey, Jellal!" Natsu points at Jellal, who had made his way over to talk to them – he was hoping to talk to Erza specifically, but she's nowhere to be found. "Tie your leg to Cobra, I'll tie my leg to Lucy, and we'll have a race!"

Lucy's eyes widen and she shrieks at that. "Hold on, why does it need to be me?!"

Jellal gives a small smile, clearly finding the suggestion funny. "Maybe we can try that later. For now, I want to congratulate you." He steps closer, clearly not wanting to be overheard. "And give you a warning. Cobra just heard some chatter in the audience – someone was talking about about 'making their move' and 'getting payback' for something that was done to them. It sounds like a Dark Guild, though they didn't say enough to help us figure out which one or what their plan is. Between our two guilds, we've probably beaten the most Dark Guilds here, so do you have any ideas?"

"Huh… I don't know…" Natsu pauses, stroking his chin. "We've beaten up a lotta bad guys over the years. Maybe it was that Eligor guy?"

"It could be Grimoire Heart," Lucy pitches in. "A few of them made it off Sirius Island, so maybe they've been biding their time until then."

Gray shrugs – which guild it is doesn't seem as important. "Whoever it is, they can't be up to anything good. We'll keep an eye out."

Jellal nods, glad to hear that. "Good. For now, you're the only ones I can trust with this outside of my guild. We can spread the word around, or inform the guards, when we have more to go on, but for now, I don't want to cause a panic."

The four Fairy Tail mages nod before they all depart. In the Alvarez team's section, Dimaria walks past her teammates, heading towards the exit. Ajeel can't resist pointing at her, laughing hysterically. "You should have seen your face when that chick landed on you! It was-"

That's all Ajeel can get out before Dimaria seemingly teleports behind him, her blade at his throat. "Say one more word about how I did, and you'll vanish, never to be found – like dust in the wind. I may not be allowed to stop time in these stupid games, but _here_ is another story. You call yourself a god? I'd be interested to see if I could take your powers, then." Gulping, Ajeel stays silent even when Dimaria withdraws her sword. "Neinhart, come with me. Those Historias of yours will make for good training dummies – I'll keep practicing until I can beat a whole _army_ of them, even _without_ freezing time." Wanting to keep his head, Neinhart follows her.

As the mages depart the arena, a few of the spectators watch them leave with an unusual amount of interest. One of them is wearing a travelling cloak massive enough to completely obscure their identity. This wasn't seen as unusual, however; this brand of cloak was chosen specifically for its popularity among travellers. The hooded figure gets up to leave, slightly amused at the turn of events. _What are the odds that the two of you would have been matched up so soon? Things still worked out, surprisingly._

Another spectator's disguise is far more inconspicuous, using illusion magic to disguise as an ordinary-looking civilian. This bystander watches carefully as one particular Fairy Tail mage makes their way out of the stadium. _Just you wait, Fairy Tail! You'll feel our full force soon enough, and then you'll wish you_ never _looked down on us!_

As the members of Fairy Tail head off to celebrate their good fortune in the first round, they aren't aware of the full extent of the forces at play in this tournament. However, even if they were, they wouldn't be concerned – between their guild and their other friends, they would feel confident no matter what challenges arose.

 **Now that the teams have been revealed, I'm considering revealing some of the matches earlier to give more time for voting. However, I'm concerned that doing that might also kill some of the suspense, so we'll see how it goes.**

 **We'll have a bit of an interlude next time before starting the second day. In the meantime, since there are no matches to vote on, I have a question – who's your favourite character in Fairy Tail (the series, not necessarily the guild)? Feel free to answer in the reviews if you want, and I hope to get the next chapter up shortly!**


	6. Nightlife in Crocus

**I figured I should try an interlude chapter, to give a bit of a break from the action. We'll see how it goes – I might not do one after every day of the Games, but that depends on how the story progresses. Some of the answers to last chapter's question certainly surprised me – it's a shame that I can't really include some of those characters in the story, for one reason or another, but hopefully you enjoy the characters that were included!**

With the first day done, the teams have the night to themselves, and plenty of time to do whatever they want. Every competitor is going to have different points of view on the best way to spend their time – some of them feel like they have earned time to relax now that they've officially made it, while others want to improve themselves after seeing the caliber of their competition. Of course, given how… unusual the mages in question can be at times, their methods of accomplishing either goal can be equally bizarre.

"How is this helping our chances in the Grand Magic Games?" Kagura's stern expression remains on her face as the mages of Mermaid Heel are browsing one of Crocus's many stores.

"It's not," Millianna responds honestly. "But how often do we get to come to a place like this?" She's probably spent the most so far, lugging around a cart full of cat-related merchandise. Cat-themed clocks, lamps, dresses – it seems as though she'll buy anything cat-related that she comes across, whether or not she needs it.

"Besides, we've got plenty to get excited about!" Arana adds, patting Risely on the back. "Risely beat one of the Spriggan Twelve single-handedly! How often are we going to get a chance to celebrate something like that?"

Kagura sighs. "The main reason she won is because that woman couldn't use her most powerful magic. The rest of the teams don't have that limitation." The rest of the team looks down, as the mood among the group turns more serious. "Besides," Kagura adds, using this moment of distraction to grab a jacket that she had been eying up, "now they've all seen what Risely can do, so I doubt they'll hold back."

"Don't worry, Kagura!" Beth flexes in an attempt at looking tough. "We've gotten a lot stronger in the past two years! If they think that Mermaid Heel's going to be the same as last time, they're gonna be surprised!"

Kagura nods at their youngest member. "True. We can't afford to underestimate them, but at the same time, they can't afford to underestimate us either." Once they've gathered up their purchases, the Mermaid Heel mages head for the check-out.

On the outskirts of Crocus, Dimaria is busy flinging herself at Neinhart's various Historias. Her sword strikes shatter the Ultear Historia like glass, as Dimaria's familiarity with her fellow time mage comes from the fragile projection. The Wendy Historia uses Sky Dragon's Roar, shooting out a wall of wind at her, but Dimaria leaps over the twister and stabs at the Historia, causing a fatal blow that leads to it fading away.

"Wendy!" As angered as the real one would be, Chelia sends out wave after wave of black wind, but without Third Origin to power her up, Dimaria can power through it. Jabbing out, she stabs the Chelia Historia in the chest, causing it to fade as well.

Dimaria gasps for air, sweating a little from exerting herself. She's been doing this all night, and even for her, it's getting tiring. Neinhart claps sarcastically. "Bravo, you've defeated two little girls. But there's another memory that you fear, isn't there?"

Suddenly, Dimaria feels a massive amount of heat behind her. She slowly turns her head to see Natsu Dragneel, his features warped and demonic looking, looming over her. In her memories, he's at least twice as big as the real deal, and surrounded by sinister-looking black flames. Roaring, the demonic Natsu swats at Dimaria, sending her flying.

Dimaria skids along the ground, coming to a stop when she runs into Brandish's legs. Looking up at her teammate, Dimaria can't help but smile. "Now there's a much better sight than that ugly demon."

Brandish looks down at Dimaria without the slightest sign of amusement on her face. "You do realize killing isn't allowed in the tournament itself, right?" Brandish sets down a plate of food. "Invel says you need to eat. All of this training won't mean anything if you have an empty stomach."

"And he got you to deliver it personally? How thoughtful of him." Dimaria sits up, grabbing the plate. It may not be the traditional cuisine of Alvarez, but it's as close as they can get with the supplies available in Ishgar.

Brandish sits down beside Dimaria, looking at the damage caused by Dimaria and the Historias over the course of the training. The ground has large marks cut into it, and several of the trees have been blown over. "When you're done that, I can help you with training. That sort of thing's annoying, but you acting like this for the rest of the week would be even worse."

Brightening up, Dimaria nuzzles against Brandish affectionately. "Aw, I didn't know you cared!" She shoos Neinhart off. "Go away, Neinhart – Brandish and I are going to have some private time."

"Finally…" Neinhart grumbles as he storms off. Dimaria continues to eat her supper, thinking about the best way to 'accidentally' damage Brandish's outfit while they spar, as Brandish gazes as the stars absentmindedly.

On the other side of Crocus, Blue Pegasus is occupying Crocus's open air baths, with Sherry sliding into the water to join Jenny on the women's side. "So why are we here? Shouldn't you all be training?"

Jenny giggles. "Ichiya-san thinks we're too stressed out from barely qualifying, which is why we did so poorly in the first round. He figures some relaxation will do us good!" She leans in to whisper so she can't be heard on the other side. "I don't know how much it will help, but I'm not going to turn down a trip to here."

Sherry giggles. "Hopefully it works out. At least, it should make Ren feel better!"

On the men's side, Ichiya feels like he isn't relaxing enough. As the Trimens (and Nichiya, who is standing on the edge of the pool – he's not a huge fan of water) watch in awe, Ichiya holds a vial up to his nose. "And now, I will take relaxation to the next level! Ultimate Relaxation Perfume!" Popping open the vial, he inhales the scent of the perfume, immediately going limp and floating face-up in the water. The Trimens cheer and try to follow his example, even though Ichiya isn't in this state willingly. The perfume proved to be a bit too effective, and now he can't move. Nichiya tries to mimic them, but the stone floor isn't exactly relaxing to lie on.

Meanwhile, Sabertooth is celebrating their performance. "Three cheers for Lady Minerva!" The assembled Sabertooth mages let out deafening cheers as Minerva takes a small bow. "And good try, Sting!" The mages laugh instead, causing Sting to look up from his supper, annoyed.

"Hey!" Lector pats Sting on the back, laughing along with the rest of the guild. Even Rogue, who is sitting across from Sting, is chuckling slightly.

Yukino is resting along a back wall, giggling at everything that's going on. Rufus joins her, lost in thought. "I remember a time when this would have been very different. Master… no, Jiemma would have berated us for Sting's poor performance, regardless of how quickly Minerva won."

Yukino nods, recalling Jiemma kicking her out of the guild with extreme clarity. "I'm glad he's gone." Normally, Yukino was very respectful and polite, but Jiemma was so barbaric that he didn't even deserve to be called a human, even before he willingly turned himself into a demon.

Rufus nods, seeing nothing wrong with that. "The guild's certainly changed for the better in his absence. Part of me wishes he was still alive, though, so he could see how much better the guild has become under my leadership."

Yukino stares at him, confused. "Um… You _are_ going to give the title of Master back to Sting when the Grand Magic Games are over, yes?"

Rufus blushes, as he's clearly embarrassed at that remark slipping out. "Of course – I remember our deal very clearly." The party at the Sabertooth lodgings continues well into the night, as its members are excited to compete without the pressures that usually accompanied the Grand Magic Games under Jiemma's leadership.

In Lamia Scale's living quarters, Jura lights some scented candles. He's always wanted to convince the rest of the group to try meditating, and now seems like the best opportunity.

"Close off your mind from the outside world, and focus on your inner self." Jura closes his eyes, a content smile on his face. Yuka follows his example, but the rest aren't so effective.

Toby can't sit still – he is constantly wondering where his sunglasses are, and he keeps trying to wander off to look for them before being stopped by Yuka. In reality, they're on his head as they normally are, but he loses track of that sort of thing very easily.

"Wah!" Even when sitting, Chelia is surprisingly clumsy – she keeps losing her balance and falling off the mat. Jura opens an eye to make sure she's okay, but she climbs back on and chuckles apologetically. "Sorry…"

Jura is about to close his eye again, but he sees that Lyon is blushing, despite looking deep in thought. "Lyon, are you focusing on finding your inner balance?"

"Y-Yes, Jura-san." In reality, he's trying, but his mind keeps wandering to visions of Juvia and Meredy. He knows that Juvia's in a relationship with Gray now, but he can't help but be awed by her beauty. As for Meredy, he keeps thinking of increasingly over-the-top ways to win her love. Undoubtedly, someone like her is bound to have countless suitors vying for her affection, but Lyon believes that winning the Grand Magic Games will get them to back off.

"Breathe in… and out." The mages of Lamia Scale inhale deeply and exhale slowly. They may have a long way to go, but in Jura's mind, the first step is the most important one. Even though Chelia leaned back a bit too far when inhaling and fell over again.

Crime Sorciere isn't too concerned with their performance in the competition. Now that they're a legal guild, they don't need to worry about being recognized, or having the guards come after them, so they have decided to take advantage of that by dining in one of the fanciest restaurants in Crocus.

Jellal eyes the menu suspiciously – they could almost pay for a whole new guild with some of these prices. His gaze turns to Midnight. "How can we possibly afford any of this?"

Midnight points to Racer. "Sawyer made a ton of money betting on the outcome of the games. His speed made it easy to get to the front of the line."

Sawyer grins, proud of his accomplishment. "I made a ton of money off of you in particular, boss! Nobody figured you'd do so well in the race!" He pauses before mentioning another wager that he made. "I also bet on Erza for your match with her. I figured you didn't have the heart to beat her."

"I see…" Jellal's going to stick with the free bread regardless; he doesn't want to get used to eating like this too often. "As long as we can afford it – I'd hate to lose our guild's legal status because we have to dine and dash."

Cobra smirks, amused by that statement. "Lighten up, Jellal. Let's live a little! Hopefully you'll let the rest of us get some time to shine over the week!" Shortly after, the waiter stops by to take their orders, giving Jellal a chance to change the topic of conversation.

As the members of Crime Sorciere continue to enjoy the newfound luxuries that come with being a legal guild, Jellal steps out of the restaurant for a breath of fresh air. Even with his sins redeemed, at least in the eyes of the law, he prefers to be away from crowds if possible. He gazes into the night sky before turning to go in, but he hears a chuckle.

"You put on quite a show today at the Grand Magic Games. Beating the other racers with ease, and going toe-to-toe with one of Fairy Tail's strongest… Guess that's to be expected of you, Jellal Fernandez."

Whipping around, Jellal sees a dark-cloaked figure standing before him. Glaring, his hands begin to glow with magical energy, but the energy fades when the figure pulls back their hood. "You're…"

"Surprised? I've got a deal for you, if you're interested." Jellal stares, slack-jawed – after all he has been through, he thought nothing could surprise him, but clearly that's not the case.

As the person explains their deal, Jellal nods. "I'll see what I can do. Meet me tomorrow morning at 7, at the arena's main gates." Nodding, the figure puts their cloak back on and wanders off into the night.

Across the city, it would be difficult for anyone to get to sleep, between the lights and the noise. As expected, the mages of Fairy Tail have gathered at their central lodging, which has turned into a massive destructive party. Over the revelling, Natsu yells out at Makarov. "Hey, gramps! With so many of us here, why not make a C team?"

Makarov sighs. "Actually, we _did_." He takes a few moments to recount what its members had told him.

 _In the preliminaries, Fairy Tail's C team, which had left from the central lodge, was nearing the end of the maze. "Cutting it this close seems unmanly…" Elfman complains._

" _It can't be helped, Big Bro." Lisanna is running alongside him, using her rabbit form to keep her speed up. "The Master wanted us to wait a bit to surprise the other teams."_

" _At least the maze was easy enough to navigate," Levy adds. "Between Freed and I, it was pretty straightforward to get through the barriers."_

 _Fried looks around, scoffing. "I can't believe this is the best the kingdom has to offer. A child could make better barriers."_

 _Gildarts is pouting a bit. "I don't get why we couldn't just smash our way through the barriers. It would have been so easy."_

" _Yeah, but then everyone could have followed us!" Levy would lecture Gildarts further, but they need to focus on finishing the maze. As the team nears the finish line, Blue Pegasus shows up, roughly the same distance from the end._

 _Jenny waves to Gildarts, unsubtly trying to seduce him. "Yoo-hoo! Gildarts! Can you give us some help?"_

 _Hearts appear in Gildarts's eyes, and he's practically drooling. "Depends – what's the reward going to be?"_

 _The rest of his team glares at him. "Don't even think about it!"_

 _Ignoring them, Jenny winks at Gildarts. "Keep everyone else from getting to the end, and I'll give you some pictures from_ that _photo-shoot that didn't make it into Weekly Sorcerer!" Everyone immediately knew what '_ that _photo-shoot' was – Jenny's nude photo-shoot, made as a result of losing her bet to Mirajane, was legendary among certain circles._

 _Gildarts punches his palm, blood dripping from his nose. "Really? Heh – I'm all fired up!"_

 _Freed looks at the rest of his team, nervous at how badly things have turned for the worse. "I don't think we'll be able to make it…"_

" _What are you talking about?" Elfman points at Gildarts. "It's four-on-one! Teaming up against someone doesn't seem like the manliest strategy, but if we all work together, maybe we can stand a chance!"_

"We didn't…" Freed, Levy, Lisanna, and Elfman chime in. Elfman's the only one who's heavily bandaged, as unlike the others, he didn't know when to quit. Gildarts is sitting off to the side, drooling over the small stack of photos and trying to keep them from the prying eyes of Macao and Wakaba.

"Worth it!" Gildarts's expression gets more and more perverted with each image, but all of a sudden, his face turns pale. "No…" He skims through them quicker, hoping that what he just saw was a fluke. " _No…_ " He clutches his head. "How could I have been so foolish? The first five pictures were Jenny, but every other picture is… _Ichiya!_ "

Acting quickly, Erza snatches the Ichiya pictures out of Gildarts' hand, though he keeps a tight grip on the pictures of Jenny. Keeping her eyes glued on anything but the pictures and her hands covering as much of them as she can to save the sanity of anyone else, she holds them towards the Fire Dragon Slayer. "Natsu, incinerate them!"

Natsu immediately does as he's told, burning the photos to ash. Wendy quickly moves to heal Erza's hand – she was so determined to have the pictures destroyed that she didn't even let go as they caught fire.

Gildarts is filled with fury at the Blue Pegasus guild, shaking his fist at the ceiling. "Cana! Natsu! Erza! Mira! Laxus! Make them _pay_!"

Natsu grins, holding up a fist. "I was gonna beat 'em in the Games anyway, but sure!"

Gajeel glares at Gildarts, annoyed that his name wasn't mentioned. "What about the rest of us, old man?"

Cana takes a swig of her wine, annoyed. "Don't drag me into this, dad!"

Carla has been watching all of this, with an amused smile on her face. As she sets her tea down, the Exceed's eyes widen, and she shakes with fear as visions of the future overtake her. Images flash by faster than she can follow, but a few stand out above the rest – a shadowy figure with a knife to Princess Hisui's throat, members of Fairy Tail fighting each other, and a massive behemoth looming over the tournament's arena. The air warps around it, and its scales shine all sorts of colours with no rhyme or reason to them. She could almost describe it as a dragon, but that couldn't be right – aside from looking hideously deformed, with warped wings and a frail tail, dragons only have one head, not ten…

The visions fade as soon as they begin, but Carla vows to inform Makarov as soon as possible. She doesn't want to drag Wendy into this, but if the Royal Family is trying to remake the Eclipse Gate or something of that nature, they need to be informed that whatever they're doing will bring about a catastrophe.

"I-Is something wrong, Carla?" Wendy saw the look of shock on Carla's face, and is clearly concerned for her friend.

"The tea's a little hot, that's all." Carla tries to keep a neutral expression on her face, but her mind keeps going back to the visions. They happen without rhyme or reason, but they usually happen when great danger is approaching. The dragon-like creature is what concerns her most – the Fairy Tail mages fighting could be due to the tournament, or some of them being manipulated by outside forces, and the princess being held hostage is potentially an issue, but the last vision shouldn't have been possible. Acnologia had been responsible for the death of every dragon, and none of the Dragon Slayers should be able to turn into dragons thanks to the efforts of their adoptive parents. If that wasn't a dragon, then what in the world is it?

 **Next, we have the start of the second day of the tournament. It's the two versus two matches, and since more fighters will be involved, I'll list the matches early to give more time to vote.**

 **Next round will consist of:**

 **Mermaid Heel vs. Crime Sorciere**

 **Alvarez vs. Fairy Tail One**

 **Lamia Scale vs. Blue Pegasus**

 **Sabertooth vs. Fairy Tail A**

 **I'll be going by the number of votes for each character, as opposed to each team, since there are ten different combinations for any given team – if I went with teams, the vote would likely be split a bunch of different ways.**


	7. Break the Targets!

**The second day has started, and we've got a good amount of votes already! Most of them are for Fairy Tail A vs. Sabertooth, though. That's understandable, but the only votes I have for the other matches come from private messages. Don't forget to vote for those as well!**

 **Thanks to Fin-Fish Jun-Tenshi for the idea for this competition! I had originally intended on having it be a constantly shifting maze, in order to give Lucy time to shine by focusing on her quick thinking and ability to summon multiple spirits at once, but their idea works better than that and doesn't seem like a repeat of the qualifying round. Also, thanks to Firebird-X for pointing out a typo in the match listings.**

By noon the next morning, the crowds and competitors have once again assembled into the stadium to prepare for the second day of the Grand Magic Games. The crowds are jam-packed, to the point where it's standing room only in some places. Between the confirmation of many popular guilds, citizens of Alvarez making the trip to Ishgar to see their champions in person, and members of the guilds themselves, the stadium was nearing capacity and the week had barely started.

Before the festivities can properly begin, Mato takes the microphone for an announcement. "Attention, everyone! There's a last minute change to the line-ups! Richard Buchanan has stepped out of the competition, and there will be a substitution for the Crime Sorciere team in his place."

In the Crime Sorciere section, Hoteye walks over to sit beside Racer and Midnight, while the other three members look at Jellal in confusion. "What? Why?" Meredy is baffled by this decision – neither one of the other two members are moving to join them.

Jellal gives Meredy a small smile as a cloaked figure joins them. "He only joined to show his brother that he was still alive, and he figures that if Wally hasn't seen him now, the news will get to him soon enough. One of the guild's other members will be taking his place."

The cloaked person pulls their hood back as Mato continues. "As the fifth member of Crime Sorciere's team, welcome…"

Meredy glances at the cloaked person, and tears come to her eyes as she sees the face beneath it. "N-No way…"

The person's long black hair comes flowing out from underneath the hood, and they smile at Meredy. "…ULTEEEEEAR MILKOVICH!"

" _ULTEAR!"_ Meredy immediately leaps at Ultear, giving her a tight hug. Ultear awkwardly returns the hug, not being used to that sort of affection but missing Meredy as much as Meredy missed her. "But how?"

Tears line the edge of Ultear's eyes, proud to see how much Meredy's grown. "Once I found out about the Time Lapse, it didn't take much for me to manipulate it. Acnologia thought he gained power over time and space by eating it, but that's like trying to fist-fight a river instead of digging a trench to alter its course. He wasn't able to use it to its full potential – all it took was Anna Heartfilia's notes and a bit of time, but I was able to restore my youth."

Jellal smiles, as he's pleased to see Meredy looking happier than she's appeared in a long time. "Ultear met me last night, and explained everything. She wanted to compete, so how could I say no?" His gaze turns to Ultear with the slightest hint of annoyance on his face. "That is, as long as you don't prevent me from going all-out like you did last time."

Ultear smiles back at Jellal, and her appearance shows no signs of shock or embarrassment. "I have no idea what you mean by that."

Gray is confused when he hears that name announced, but rolls with it. "Figures you wouldn't go down that easily, Ultear."

Lyon's eyes widen as he watches Ultear and Meredy, and his mind drifts into fantasy mode. "It can't be… A love rival?!"

In another part of the stadium, Dimaria is furious, her teeth gritted as she glares at Ultear. If looks could kill, Ultear would be dead several times over – Dimaria only knows Ultear as the person who could interfere with her time stopping, but that's enough of a reason for her to despise the other time mage.

As Meredy maintains her vice-like grip on Ultear, refusing to let go, Mato announces the day's matches. "Be sure to keep that change in mind when voting on today's matches! These fights will be two versus two, so you'll have to choose eight mages this time! And here are the matches that you'll be voting on!" Mato steps to the side, gesturing to the screens, which display the teams that will be pitted against each other.

 **Mermaid Heel vs. Crime Sorciere**

 **Alvarez vs. Fairy Tail One**

 **Lamia Scale vs. Blue Pegasus**

 **Sabertooth vs. Fairy Tail A**

The crowd lets out a cheer at the match-ups, with Sabertooth and Fairy Tail's match generating the most excitement. Anyone who had been present that year recalled Natsu and Gajeel's fight with Sting and Rogue, so this year's fight has a lot to live up to. Some want to see a rematch, while others want to see something new – either way, people vote for that one almost immediately.

"Now I'd like to call a representative from each team up here for today's competition!" Once again, a platform rises out of the sand as the mages gather on it.

"Today's my turn!" Lucy walks onto the stage, over the protests of Natsu wanting another chance.

Brandish sighs, hopping into the arena. "I guess I can go…" Dimaria had tried to get in there first, but surprisingly, Brandish reacted quickly for once.

Cobra leaps into the arena as well. "After that sorry display yesterday, it's time to show all of you what a real Dragon Slayer can do!"

Toby runs in, looking around frantically. "I think I left my sunglasses in here! Did anyone see them?" The rest of Lamia Scale groans, but they don't try to stop him – he deserves to compete at least once.

Hibiki walks onto the field with a fairly dramatic air about him. "This is the night for Blue Pegasus to soar through the air to victory!"

Setting down her wine, Cana stumbles onto the field. "Hey, Lucy! No hard feelings no matter who wins, 'kay?" Lucy nods, smiling brightly at her fellow Fairy Tail mage.

"Ya'll better look out – Mermaid Heel's in it to win it!" After some discussion with her teammates, Beth decides to represent her guild today.

"Um… I guess I can go…" Yukino nervously steps onto the field, as the rest of her team stands as still as statues. With Lucy participating, they all decided independently that it would be fitting for Yukino to compete against her fellow Celestial Spirit mage. However, they wanted her to make the choice on her own. As a result, they all stood there awkwardly before Yukino chose to step in.

Hibiki is pleasantly surprised to see so many women competing today. "My apologies in advance to the ladies… as well as the rest of you. Don't hold it against me if I am victorious, all right?"

Lucy giggles, but says nothing. Cana, Brandish, and Beth just ignore him. Toby chimes in, feeling like someone should respond. "I won't be mad at you! Probably…" Hibiki completely ignores him, as he's too busy trying to see if he got a reaction out of any of the women.

"All right, we have our participants for today's event! And that event is…" Smoke fills the arena, and when it fades, a massive mansion has formed in the middle of the arena. "…Target Practice!"

Massive screens float into the arena, displaying images from within the mansion as well as video of each of the mages competing in this round. Chapati speaks into the microphone, joined as always by Yajima as well as today's guest commentator, Levy McGarden. "This is quite a popular event from previous years! It seems they've changed things up, though – usually, it's held in the open air!"

Inside the mansion, Mato explains the rules to the eight mages who are gathered in there. "This is a game to see who can score the most points! There are one hundred and one targets scattered throughout this mansion. The game ends when all of them have been hit, or when half an hour has passed – whatever comes first. Leaving the building counts as surrendering, even if you've been thrown out of it! Hitting the targets with anything will get you a point, so no need to worry if your magic requires close quarters." To demonstrate, Mato picks up a conveniently placed pumpkin and tosses it at a target that drifts by. The pumpkin splatters against the target, and with a ding, the scoreboard changes, as Mato's picture rises to the top with a single point. "Now we're down to a hundred targets left, so best of luck and happy hunting!"

With that, Mato runs out the door, and the mages quickly scatter, trying to find the remaining targets. The house is fairly large, with a lot of hallways and side rooms, so there's going to be a lot of ground to cover. Thinking quickly, Lucy pulls out her Celestial Spirit keys. "Since Loke's still a member of Fairy Tail, I don't think I can use him, so…" Holding two keys into the air, she summons a pair of spirits who seem like they'll be useful for this kind of competition. "…Sagittarius and Virgo, come forth!"

"Hello hello!" The horse-masked archer gives Lucy a salute, clutching his bow with one hand, while Virgo kneels down.

"Greetings, princess. Is it time for my punishment?" The maid glances up at Lucy, clearing hoping that it is that time.

Lucy shakes her head frantically. "N-No, not at all! I want you two to spread out and hit as many targets as you can find – they're big, and likely floating. They could be behind or underneath anything in here, so be thorough!" Nodding, the two spirits run off to accomplish this task. Not wanting to make her spirits do all of the work, Lucy uses her Star Dress magic, switching to Sagittarius's outfit.

Now armed with a bow and arrow as well as improved accuracy, Lucy sets off to find targets of her own. Seeing this, Yukino pulls her keys out. "That's a great idea. I don't know if I could do that much at once, but…" Finding a specific key, she summons her spirit. "Pisces, come forth!"

The mother and son spirits appear before Yukino, summoned in their human form. "How can we help?"

"I need you to find any targets you can and hit them for me. They're somewhere in this house." Yukino gestures around her.

The son nods. "Sure thing, mom."

"…I'm not your mother." Like always, the son ignores Yukino as the two spirits set out, sticking close together.

Hibiki's archive magic gathers information about the house, and quickly, the most efficient pathway is laid out for him on the floating screens generated by his magic. "According to this, there should be a target right…" Hibiki reaches out to pull back a painting, but Cobra leaps over him and stabs through the painting, hitting the target. "Hey!"

Cobra grins. "First come, first served!" With that, he dashes off, with his enhanced senses making it easy to tell where the targets and the other competitors are.

"Get back here!" Hibiki tries chasing after the poison Dragon Slayer, but he can't keep up.

"Hey, has anyone seen my- Oh…" Toby looks around, seeing that everyone's already went off in their own directions. "Better get looking…"

Once she's gotten some distance from the others, Cana pulls out a deck of cards, picking out a card that has a picture of a flock of crows on it. The crows burst from the card and fly around the house, looking for targets on Cana's behalf. They vanish when they touch anything, making them much less effective than Celestial Spirits, but there are plenty more cards where that came from.

Having given up on chasing Cobra, Hibiki makes his way toward the kitchen. There are several targets around here, and while they're well hidden, finding them should be no problem. "Archive Drone!" Several holographic drones appear, scanning the room. While they aren't physical, and therefore can't hit the targets, they're effective at finding them through walls, doors, and other obstacles.

Once their locations are mapped out, Hibiki prepares to go around the room and hit them all, only to pause when he sees a bloated carrot growing out of the kitchen counter. "What in the -"

"Carrot Mortar!" Hibiki narrowly ducks in time as the carrot explodes, sending out smaller carrots as shrapnel in all directions. The carrots bounce off of pans, break through glass, and generally get everywhere – they might not be powerful attacks, but the goal is to simply hit the targets, not to hit the hardest.

Beth stands in another entranceway, a satisfied smile on her face. "That'll do it!" Confident that she cleared out a lot of the room, she runs off. Grumbling, Hibiki opens up a cupboard that was too tough for the carrots to break through, hits the target inside, and leaves the kitchen behind.

In one of the hallways, Cobra lunges at another target, a massive grin on his face. "Man, this game's a piece of cake! I don't know why Jellal said this might be…" Suddenly, he hears something zooming through the air behind him. Almost like an arrow…

That is, in fact, the object that zooms over Cobra's head, hitting the target before Cobra can reach his goal. Whipping around, Cobra sees a man wearing a horse head over his actual head, which is clearly visible. "Hello, hello! Sorry, I should have properly introduced myself!" Not having much time to wait around, the horse-man runs off to find more targets.

"…What the hell?" Cobra stares at the spot where the horse-man had been standing, confused. Shaking it off, he decides to keep looking for more targets.

As the game goes on, Lucy is starting to get more and more suspicious, carefully looking around every corner. Sure, the objective of the game was to hunt for targets, but there's nothing saying that you couldn't knock out your rivals as well, and as the number of targets decrease, people might get more desperate.

Not seeing anyone, Lucy steps around the corner and begins to examine the room. Targets could be anywhere – under cushions, inside of books, on the ceiling – so she'll have to be thorough in her investigation. She's so absorbed in looking for the targets that she doesn't hear someone creeping up behind her until it is too late…

"Lucy!" Cana starts off with her usual greeting, wrapping her arms around Lucy's body from behind and energetically squeezing her chest. "I was wondering when I'd find ya!"

"Cana, stooo-ooop~!" Lucy whines as Cana refuses to let go of the Celestial Spirit mage. The feeling of Lucy squirming against her only pushes Cana to continue her assault on the blonde.

"Is this the standard greeting in Fiore?" Both women turn to see Brandish staring at them, an eyebrow raised in confusion. "I'm not entirely used to the local customs."

Cana grins, seeing her chance to have some more fun. "Sure! Why don't you greet Lucy, just for practice?"

"It's not a greeting!" Lucy yells, chopping at Cana's head lightly. "It's just Cana being Cana." She calms down a bit, smiling at Brandish. "Had any luck so far?"

Brandish shakes her head. "Not much. I tried growing the targets until they filled the whole hall, but that didn't get me any points, and they'll only shrink so much. Good thing there were some books nearby."

"That's too bad." Still, Lucy's relieved that Brandish is the one who wound up in here, out of the Alvarez members. She might be able to deal with Jacob, even if it would be embarrassing to exploit his known weakness, but the others would take this contest seriously. "Still, I'm glad we can do something like this – where it doesn't matter who wins or loses, and we can just have fun."

Brandish's morose expression remains on her face. "Fun…" She looks Lucy in the eyes, a bit relieved to hear that there's no ill will for what happened between them. "What else do you do for fun here?"

Cana laughs, slapping Brandish on the back as Lucy tries frantically to signal to her fellow Fairy Tail member that this might not be the best course of action. "We can show you the sights later! For now, you'd better worry about finding those targets!"

Brandish looks around, but doesn't see any targets in the area. "I'd better get going – Ajeel will be whiny if I don't do well." With that, she wanders off, looking around in random directions to see if she can spot a target or two.

The symbol on Virgo's key glows, as her voice comes through it. "Princess, I've found something underground – I think it's a basement."

"Really?" Lucy picks up the key, holding it closer to make sure Virgo can hear. "Check it out – it might be important!"

"And then can I get punished?" While Virgo's expression can't be seen, her voice certainly sounds hopeful.

Lucy's face falls as Cana elbows her, chuckling. "Can we not talk about this now?"

Hibiki's archive magic has thoroughly mapped out the house by this point, and while targets are disappearing rapidly, the translucent map floating in front of him indicates something interesting. "Hm… It seems there's a path behind this bookcase. Now, let's see…" Pulling on a few of the books, he quickly finds one that causes the shelf to click and slide to the side. "A secret passageway – interesting…"

Working his way down the stairs behind the bookcase, he finds a rather elaborately decorated door. "Whatever's behind here must be important!" Hibiki throws open the door, and is greeted with ten targets floating in the middle of the room. "Yes! Now I just need to…"

"Virgo Kick!" Lucy's pink haired maid spirit launches herself forward with a flying kick, passing through eight of the targets. Hibiki dives at the last two, but he's disappointed at how close he was to pulling ahead before it was taken away from him.

Elsewhere, Brandish is starting to get frustrated. Making the targets shrink or grow doesn't do anything to get her team points, and while she could throw any of the objects on hand at the targets in order to score, that's not exactly something that she's skilled with. "Ugh… This is annoying!" Brandish stomps her feet – while she can't leave the building, there's something else she can do…

Outside the house, most of the spectators are watching the events play out on the various screens floating in mid-air. The score sheet updates in real time as mages hit the targets. All of a sudden, the entire building begins to shake.

"W-What's going on?" Levy keeps a close eye on the house, worried for the safety of her friends.

Yajima points at one of the screens. "It seems like the member of Alvarez's team is upset. We've already seen what one of them is capable of, so…"

Immediately after he finishes that word, the house warps and shrinks to the size of a dollhouse along with bringing everyone in it down to a proportionate size. "W-What?!" Chapati stares at the house, eyes bulging and his mouth hanging open. "How can someone do that so effortlessly?!"

The screen shows Brandish looking around, disappointed. "Darn… I didn't think the targets would shrink along with the house…" With a wave of her hand, the house and everyone in it returns to normal. Resigning herself to the fact that she'll have to do this the hard way, she picks up a pillow and throws it at a target, earning a point in the process.

With all of that shaking, Toby stumbles and falls to the ground. As a result, his sunglasses fall off his head, and he sees them lying in front of him. "There they are!" Reaching over, Toby puts his sunglasses back in the same spot that they fell from to begin with. "How'd my sunglasses wind up in here?"

The targets are becoming harder and harder to find, and before long, there's only a single one left. Hearing it move, Cobra quickly makes his way to its location and claws at it, causing a buzzer to ring out.

Levy beams as she looks at the scoreboard. "That's a hundred and one targets, so that's the end of the game!" Lucy hit the most targets with a total of thirty, thanks to her spirits and her Star Dress. Due to being able to hear the targets moving and having the skills to reach them, Cobra came in second with twenty six, while Beth came in third with thirteen.

Cana barely lost to Beth, hitting twelve targets over the course of the contest. Yukino couldn't cover as much ground as Lucy, resulting in her getting eight. Hibiki may have had the optimal route planned out, but his lack of speed and physical talents resulted in him only reaching six before anyone else did, while Brandish, whose powers were ill-suited for this kind of competition, only got five.

The only person to do worse than Mato's single point is Toby, who was so busy looking for his sunglasses that he failed to hit any of the targets. The scoreboard updates to reflect the results.

 **Fairy Tail A: 21**

 **Mermaid Heel: 20**

 **Fairy Tail 1: 20**

 **Crime Sorciere: 18**

 **Sabertooth: 13**

 **Alvarez: 9**

 **Blue Pegasus: 4**

 **Lamia Scale: 3**

As the scores total up, the Fairy Tail and Mermaid Heel members let out a loud cheer, but not everybody is thrilled with this outcome. In particular, Ajeel is gritting his teeth, furious at what's happened. First, Jacob gets beaten in a race by some blue-haired nobody, and now Dimaria and Brandish outright lost? "What is this, a bad dream? We're Alvarez! If August and Eileen were still alive, we'd be in the lead by a long shot!"

Jacob glances at his comrade, annoyed by how poorly he's handling all of this. "If August and Eileen were participating, then you wouldn't be. We're having bad luck so far, but there's plenty of time to make up for that."

Neinhart points at the screen that is displaying this round's match-ups. "Besides, we might even get the chance to avenge the deaths of Bloodman and Wahl in the process!"

Dimaria shrugs, unconcerned with Neinhart's point. "Bloodman was a creep and Wahl was a weirdo – the two of them dying wasn't exactly a big loss."

Snarling, Ajeel clutches the wall in front of him. "Whatever! We can't afford to lose, no matter who we're up against!"

The members of Lamia Scale, meanwhile, are staring at the scoreboard in shock. "T-Three points…" Jura, Lyon, Chelia, and Yuka are all wide-eyed, as are the rest of the guild's members.

Ooba Babasama, the guild's master, is practically a miniature tornado as she spins over to her team. "You _have_ to defeat Blue Pegasus this round! Jura, step in for someone else if you don't get voted in!"

Jura tries to remain calm. "…Master, it doesn't work like that…"

Chelia tries to pump herself up, getting ready in case she's called on to fight. "Don't worry, Master! We've got the power of love on our side, so we can't lose!"

In the Blue Pegasus section, Hibiki looks nervous as he makes his way back to his team. "Sorry, Ichiya-san – I couldn't win this one."

Ichiya brushes it off, clearly not worried. "No problem – we've got plenty of time, and you did your best. That's all that matters."

"Ichiya-san!" Reinvigorated, the Trimens and Ichiya strike a pose, while Jenny looks at her team, still a bit baffled by their behaviour even after all of the time that she's spent with them.

"All right, Lucy!" Natsu yells over the crowd as Lucy and Cana make their way back to their teams. "That's ten more points for us!"

Gray smirks, looking at the scoreboard. "It's definitely a nice change of pace from last time." He can still remember the feeling of humiliation when Raven Tail and Sabertooth made him look like a fool, and made Fairy Tail seem like a laughingstock – it's not something he'd want to go through again.

Wendy looks at the match-ups a bit nervously. "But we saw how quickly things can change yesterday – today isn't over yet, and we're against Sabertooth…"

Erza smiles at her younger guild member, confident as always. "At least it's just a friendly competition this time – there shouldn't be any hard feelings no matter who wins or loses." However, even if it is a friendly competition, the concept of 'holding back' never even crosses Erza's mind – the mages of Sabertooth would want to display their strength, and the same thing should go for any member of Fairy Tail.

"I'm all fired up!" Flames rise from Natsu's fist, as he's barely able to contain his excitement. As the mages all make it back to their seats and the building vanishes, Mato walks out into the arena.

"What an exciting day, folks, and we're nowhere near done! Next we have a match worth keeping an eye on – Mermaid Heel's surprised us in these first two days, while Crime Sorciere has done extremely well despite being brand new to the games! But who among them will be pitted against each other in a two-on-two battle?" To answer that question, Mato points towards the screens, as the votes begin to total up…

 **We'll end the chapter here – hopefully the new addition to Crime Sorciere's team will open up new possibilities, both for this match-up and the future of the tournament!**

 **I felt like removing Ultear from the series was an unusual decision, all things considered – her being in Crime Sorciere wouldn't have prevented Oracion Seis from joining, her absence wasn't used to develop Meredy and Jellal, and she wasn't so powerful that she could easily defeat future enemies. Plus, I figure her coming back would help to develop a bunch of characters who are participating this time around.**

 **Next time, we'll have Mermaid Heel vs. Crime Sorciere at the very least. We might get Alvarez vs. Fairy Tail Team One as well, but that depends on the match-ups involved.**


	8. Grudge Match

**Voting was close this time around, at least for Crime Sorciere (everyone but Jellal got two vote each), so I had a few different options. In this case, one of them stood head and shoulders above the rest in terms of developing the characters involved, so that's the one that I chose.**

The votes for the Mermaid Heel and Crime Sorciere members settle into place, and for Mermaid Heel, Kagura and Millianna are significantly above the other three. As for Crime Sorciere, Jellal is well below the others, to Kagura's disappointment (she had been hoping that publicly defeating him would avenge Simon without upsetting Erza), but the rest of the team is quite close in terms of votes.

Angel can tell that her total's above Cobra's, so she's excited to finally take part. "All right! Come on, Meredy – let's go!"

Meredy points at the screen, trying to draw Angel's attention back to it. "Uh… Actually…"

"Our first match is Kagura Mikazuchi and Millianna vs. Meredy and Ultear Milkovich!" Angel stops where she's standing, her eyes boring holes into the screen. After a few moments, she sits down, pouting at the outcome.

Ultear brushes her hair back and lets out a small chuckle. "I guess I must have made a good impression. Let's go, Meredy."

Meredy nods eagerly, excited to be fighting alongside Ultear again. "Right!"

Millianna, meanwhile, is absolutely furious. "Kagura, that's the person who-"

Kagura nods, her knuckles turning white beneath her gloves as she grips her sword. "I know. I heard you talking to her the last time we were at the Grand Magic Games. I thought she was dead…"

Erza gazes down at the arena sadly as the four women enter it. Only a handful of people know what went on at the Tower of Heaven, and even fewer know the entire truth behind it. While she's glad to see Ultear alive, and she wants to see Kagura and Millianna do well, she can't help but feel that this match is going to end badly no matter who wins.

The gong rings out, signalling the start of the match, and immediately, Kagura dashes forward, ready to swing her sheathed sword at Ultear's head.

Her blow is intercepted, however, by a sword in Meredy's hand. "Maguilty Sodom! I won't let you hurt-" That's all she can get out before Kagura knocks her to the side, continuing her charge towards the person who manipulated Jellal into killing Simon.

Ultear tries to leap out of the way, but whips launch at her in a spiralling motion. "Kitten Blast!" Millianna's attack knocks Ultear off-balance, but thinking quickly, she summons orbs to surround herself and defend her body from Kagura's attacks.

Kagura's swings shatter the orbs that they hit, but new ones form to replace them. "I heard about what you did – about how you were responsible for the death of my brother! Jellal may have been the one to deliver the finishing blow, but he's too important to Erza. You, on the other hand…"

"Don't you dare!" Meredy runs forward to help Ultear, but Millianna pounces on her, pinning her to the ground.

Leaning in, the catgirl whispers to the Crime Sorciere mage. "You have _no_ idea what Er-chan and the rest of us went through because of her. Stay out of this, if you know what's good for you." Ignoring that, Meredy uses her magic to summon energy swords into the air around her, which slice at Millianna. Millianna leaps off of Meredy to get out of the way, and Meredy immediately darts towards her guildmate.

Ultear telekinetically flings one of the orbs at Kagura, but the swordswoman ducks under it. "I know I can never make up for what happened to Simon…"

Kagura's eyes are filled with rage at that sentence. "Don't you _dare_ say his name!" Her next swing has enough force to smash through several orbs on Ultear's right side, breaking through her defenses with ease and hitting her arm.

Ultear stumbles back, clutching her injured limb. She tries to send her remaining orbs flying at Kagura, to get her on the defensive, but as she holds out her hands, the orbs don't fly straight ahead. Instead, they hover in place for a moment before plummeting to the ground and shattering.

Looking down, Ultear sees a whip, glowing with magical energy and wrapping its way around her leg. Millianna smirks as Ultear feels her magic drain away. "Pretty strong, right?"

Kagura tries to take advantage of Ultear's moment of weakness, but Meredy gets in her way, summoning a wall of swords to try and stop Kagura. "I know Ultear hurt you in the past. She hurt me too, but she's made up for…"

The Mermaid Heel mage is surrounded by a purple glow as she activates her gravity magic, making herself much lighter. She leaps into the air, easily making it over Meredy's swords, and descends towards Ultear clutching her sheathed one.

Ultear tries to leap out of the way, but Millianna's grip is better than expected – she doesn't have much room to dodge. "Slashing Form!" Kagura swings her sword, and even with it sheathed, she's able to cleanly cut Ultear's body. Ultear stumbles back, clutching her chest.

Seeing her moment to strike, Millianna draws closer to Ultear to get the whip around the rest of her body. However, Ultear leaps towards Millianna, kicking her in the stomach. As Millianna is knocked away, the whip unravels and is carried with her, and she lands on the sand with a thud. Millianna gets to her feet, winded but still able to continue.

As Millianna and Meredy try to get over to Ultear, the former trying to hurt her and the latter wanting to help her, the dark haired swordswoman keeps her eyes trained firmly on Ultear, the thought of technique or caution lost in her berserk rage.

"I've been storing up magic within my sheathed sword for the past year." Kagura grips the hilt of her sword, thinking about how badly her brother had suffered. "It may not be capable of killing you…" With that, Kagura dashes toward the source of her brother's misery, and the main cause of his demise. "…but I can guarantee that it will hurt!"

Ultear whips her head towards Meredy. "Meredy, now!"

"But, Ultear…"

"NOW!"

With a scream, Kagura unsheathes her sword, swinging it at Ultear's side. An immense wave of magical energy flies from the blade – while not the building-destroying blast that Erza had deflected two years ago, it was still powerful enough to slash a hole clean through the reinforced stadium walls. That slash manages to catch Ultear on her side, despite her best attempt to leap out of the way.

Blood streaming from her wound, Ultear falls to her knees. Kagura looks on satisfied, but she suddenly feels a pain and her side and clutches it; Millianna seems worse off, as she falls down entirely, yelling. Seeing a glow from beneath her sleeve, she pulls it back to see a heart mark on her wrist. It doesn't take long to notice that Millianna has the exact same mark on her. Looking up, she glares at Ultear, her voice harsh. "What did you do?"

Ultear shakily gets to her feet. "Meredy has an ability known as Sensory Link. She didn't want to do this, but now the three of us are linked together. All of our feelings are now shared – physically, and emotionally."

"You're bluffing!" Pulling off her glove, Millianna leaps forward, scratching at Ultear. The time mage doesn't resist in any way as Millianna's claws slice through her uniform, but as the blow lands, the cat-like mage also yells out in pain.

Kagura glares at the two Crime Sorciere mages, as this action seemingly confirms her suspicions about their moral character. Millianna's actions hurt her as well, but she's composed enough that pain such as that won't get a reaction out of her. "What kind of a sadistic course of action is this? What kind of a monster would force someone to harm their own teammate with every blow?"

Ultear shakes her head. "That's not what I meant by this at all. I just want you to understand the truth."

Millianna gets back up, but tears are forming in her eyes as she feels the cold, clammy grip of sadness around her – a feeling that is almost unfamiliar to one who's as bubbly as her. "Kagura, what's going on?!"

Ultear looks down at the cat mage, but doesn't take advantage of this moment of weakness to strike. "As I said, we're connected physically and emotionally. This sense of sadness that you're feeling is my own guilt – a guilt that all of Crime Sorciere's mages share in some form or another."

"What difference does that make?" Kagura glares up at Ultear, her rage coursing through the three of them. "Whether or not you feel bad about what you've done, it isn't going to bring back Simon!"

"I knew that, no matter how much I apologized, or how sincere I was, you would never believe that I had changed. You would always look at me as your brother's killer, or at least the one who signed his death warrant." Ultear looks to the crowd, and Jellal in particular, as if reminding herself of her wrongdoings, and both Millianna and Kagura feel the sense of sadness deepen.

Looking back at the Mermaid Heel mages, Ultear continues. "This is the pain that I live with every single day. I thought that, if Grimoire Heart could achieve its goal, I would be able to go back in time and start over – to change things so I was never separated from my mother, and none of the horrible things that I had caused would come to place. I see now how foolish that is – I can't change the past, but I will never stop trying to make up for it."

Millianna stares wide-eyed – if she had just heard that, she wouldn't believe a word of it, but sharing her emotions with Ultear, she can feel the immense sense of guilt and sorrow that the other woman is experiencing.

"Even if you're being honest…" Kagura gets to her feet, gripping her sword tightly. "I will not lose on this day!" As she lets out a cry, Kagura dashes at Meredy, as she figures that defeating Meredy will sever the connection between them.

Flinging an orb into the air, Ultear calls out her spell. "Luminous Minutes!" As the orb reaches a spot between Ultear, Kagura, and Millianna, it splits off into numerous orbs made of light. The balls of light launch towards the ground like lasers, catching the Mermaid Heel mages and Ultear herself in the crossfire. Meredy can only watch, upset and unable to step in as all three of the mages yell out in pain – pain that is tripled by the Sensory Link that they all share.

As the barrage ends, Ultear collapses, with Millianna following suit moments later. Kagura tries to stay on her feet, stumbling towards Meredy, but the combined pain of herself, Millianna, and Ultear is too much for her, and she falls as well. With Meredy as the last one standing, and Chapati and Levy staring wide-eyed at what just happened, Yajima takes to the microphone. "The winner is… Crime Sorciere!"

As Meredy helps Ultear off of the battlefield, and Mermaid Heel's mages rush down to help Kagura and Millianna, ten points are added to Crime Sorciere's total, putting them in first place by a large amount. As the field is cleared, the next match is announced.

"Now, it's the match between Fairy Tail's Team One and the team from Alvarez! You voted, and this match will be between…" Once again, the votes are spread fairly evenly, though Fairy Tail's side has at least one clear winner – Mirajane is in the lead by a fair amount. The runner up, Laxus, has an obvious difference between his votes and the votes for Gajeel and Cana. Smirking, the Lightning Dragon Slayer gets to his feet as Gajeel stays seated, grumbling. "…Mirajane Strauss and Laxus Dreyar versus Ajeel Ramal and Dimaria Yesta!"

Ajeel laughs in an almost maniacal fashion. "Finally! You might have been underwhelmed so far, but now it's time for the great Ajeel, the strongest member of the Spriggan Six, to show what he's capable of!"

Dimaria rolls her eyes. "I could prove you wrong here and now, but then I'd have to fight two against one."

Mirajane prances onto the battlefield, giggling as Laxus stomps in alongside her. "I'm sure we'll all do our best! Good luck!"

Laxus scoffs, cracking his knuckles as he eyes up the competition. "You're gonna need it."

"Begin!" As the gong sounds out, Laxus is surrounded by lightning, dashing towards Ajeel, who is unfortunate enough to be directly across from him. Ajeel barely has time to follow Laxus with his eyes before Laxus knees the sand mage in the chest, knocking him back.

Mirajane waves at Dimaria as Ajeel launches sand at Laxus. "I know you had bad luck on the first day, but maybe that will change!"

Dimaria licks her lips, eying up Mirajane's curves. "Oh, it already has." Her sword hand is a blur as she slashes, and strips from the sides of Mirajane's dress fall to the ground. "If there's one thing that gets me motivated, it's fighting cute girls."

"Oh noooo! How embarrassing~!" Mira is clearly faking it as she brings her hands up to her face in mock embarrassment, her expression never changing from its sunny smile. "You must have missed the last time I competed – I got into a modelling contest with Jenny, and we were _incredibly_ shameless. A bit of clothing damage isn't going to throw me off after _that_."

"Interesting… I'd like to test that." Dimaria flicks her sword again, and Mirajane lets out a squeak as another part of her dress is cut away.

Laxus leaps over the spikes that Ajeel formed out of sand, launching a blast of electricity from his mouth as he uses Lightning Dragon's Roar. Ajeel leaps backwards, throwing up a sand barrier that Laxus's lightning collides with and explodes.

"I'll finish this quickly!" The sand on the arena floor begins to whip around Ajeel and Laxus, quickly gathering speed. "Sand Country!" Ajeel uses a smaller version of his Sand World power – rather than covering the entire city with a sandstorm, it just covers the area of the stadium where he's fighting Laxus.

Laxus looks around, but he struggles to find Ajeel as his sense of smell is hampered by the strong winds. Ajeel's voice echoes mockingly throughout the storm. "I could have covered the whole stadium like this, but I figured the crowd would want to see a good show. People might have looked down on Alvarez from our performance so far, but they'll change their mind once they see how badly Dimaria will beat up that ditz!"

Laxus smirks despite the situation that he's in, as he finds Ajeel's words hilarious. "You remember Erza? You know, the woman who beat you?"

Ajeel grits his teeth, already annoyed with where this conversation is going. "What does she have to do with this? She can only sit back and watch as-"

"That 'ditz' is her biggest rival, you idiot. She'd kick _your_ ass without even trying, and I'd put good money on her being able to beat your partner as well." Laxus launches a bolt of lightning towards the source of Ajeel's voice, but it passes through the sandstorm harmlessly, flying over the heads of the crowd to explode with a deafening crack in midair.

Outside of the sandstorm, Dimaria is continuing to slice at Mirajane's clothes, to the delight of most men and plenty of women in the audience. The Fairy Tail mage's outfit is tattered, but enough is intact for it to stay on her body. As Dimaria goes in for another blow, Mirajane grabs the sword out of mid-air, with her hand turned into a demonic claw. "I'd say that's about enough, wouldn't you agree?"

Despite her sword being grabbed by her enemy, Dimaria can't help but smile. "Clever. You used that time to get the timing of my attacks down."

With surprising force for someone who looks to be a model, Mirajane pulls the sword out of Dimaria's hand and tosses it away. "Actually, I could have done that at any time. I just figured the audience deserved a show – you getting a one-sided beat-down isn't exactly entertaining to watch."

Dimaria laughs at that brazen statement. " _You're_ going to beat me? I'd _love_ to see that."

"If you insist…" Surrounding herself with light, Mirajane transforms, her clothing replaced with a black bodysuit that has jagged tendrils running down it. Given how much magic her transformations take, Mirajane figures it's best to go all-out to start with and end this quickly, changing into Satan Soul: Mirajane Alegria. Before Dimaria can make a move for her sword, Mirajane's hand is right in front of her face. "Don't say I didn't warn you…"

Dimaria is sent flying by Mirajane's attack, crashing into the stadium walls. Dust from the collision is sent flying everywhere, blocking the time mage from view, but suddenly, it's all launched outward as Dimaria stands up, radiating with magic power.

"Impressive… But what is a demon… when compared to a _god?!_ " Dimaria's entire body apart from her jaw and neck has become black, lined with light spiralling markings. Her hair has grown significantly, flaring upwards, and the wind whips outward with every step she takes towards Mirajane. Even her manner of speaking has changed, signifying her channelling of Chronos, the god of time. "This is a form that this one only takes when time has stopped. 'Tis not meant for mortal eyes, but if thou art to be defeated in a prompt fashion, it shall suffice."

"So you don't like going all-out when other people can see you either?" The situation has gotten much more complicated, but like any Fairy Tail mage, Mirajane refuses to back down. "This will certainly be interesting."

The air thick with magical power, the two Take Over mages charge at each other, letting out a battle cry. Their clash proves to be so powerful that it even blows away Ajeel's sandstorm temporarily.

Laxus catches a glimpse of Mirajane before the sand fills his vision once more. "So Mira's going all out, huh? Guess that's my cue." Yelling, Laxus's fangs become more prominent as scales appear underneath his eyes. Like most artificial Dragon Slayers, activating Dragon Force is much easier for him compared to the Dragon Slayers who learned their magic naturally. The power boost isn't as big as a result, but when Laxus is _already_ absurdly powerful to begin with, it doesn't need to be.

"Realizing how futile your situation is? I don't blame you." Ajeel positions himself into Laxus's blind spot, moving in to stab at his stomach. Laxus doesn't seem concerned in the slightest, as electricity shrouds him.

Just before Ajeel hits, Laxus twists to the side, narrowly avoid it. Raising his arms above his head and gripping them together, he shouts. "Lightning Dragon's JAW!" As Ajeel's momentum carries him past the Fairy Tail mage, Laxus brings his fists down hard on Ajeel's back. A bolt of lightning falls from the sky, and the already powerful attack is amplified further by Laxus's Dragon Force state.

For a moment, the sand tornado appears to freeze in place and solidify, before Ajeel is tossed through it. This causes a chain reaction that leads to the entire structure shattering like glass as Laxus steps out of it.

"I hope you've got more than that. Even Wahl was stronger than you." Laxus cracks his neck, acting as though being trapped in a sandstorm is little more than a warm-up for him.

"All right, Laxus! You're the greatest!" Freed is waving a banner with Laxus's face on it, one so massive that his fellow Fairy Tail mages are complaining that he's blocking their view.

Levy stares slack-jawed at the carnage as Ajeel stumbles to his feet. "Right now, I'm glad that my team didn't qualify for the Grand Magic Games." Elfman and Lisanna silently agree with her.

Chapati is bug-eyed as he watches the unfolding events. "It's only the second day, and this is already turning out to be a battle of monsters!"

As if trying to demonstrate Chapati's claims, Ajeel gathers all of the sand on the arena floor into a single point, leaving the fighter standing on flat rock. The sand quickly coalesces into a massive sand golem that towers over the stadium itself, its blank face focused on the unimpressed Laxus.

"Is that all?" The golem swings its arm at Laxus, but given its size, the structure is painfully slow, at least by his standards. Laxus hops up the arm, kicking the massive sand person in the face. With his legs enhanced by lightning, the golem's head explodes, spraying the audience behind it with sand. This doesn't stop it, however, as the remaining sand simply forms a new head. "Get out here, you coward!"

As Laxus continues to batter at Ajeel's creation, Mirajane headbutts Dimaria, and the force of the impact sends the two of them skidding away from each other. "I only heard about God Soul from Wendy, but I wonder which of our Take Overs will be the stronger one?"

Dimaria stares at Mirajane with a cold expression on her face. "Thou art deluded! Only a God Slayer can hope to slay a god!"

Mirajane flashes a confident smirk as she changes her stance. "I don't know about _that_. Erza isn't a Dragon Slayer, but she still managed to beat up two dragons. I can't afford to fall behind her, so I'll see what I can do."

Her form shifts again, as her feet change into bird-like talons. Her outfit has become much more revealing – little more than a swimsuit bottom and two strips of cloth running diagonally down her body to cover her breasts. In the crowd, Erza's eyes widen and her face goes pale as she immediately recognizes Mirajane's new form. "Oh no, she couldn't have…"

"Satan Soul: Kyouka!" Mirajane's facial features and hair colour remains her own, but otherwise, she bears a strong resemblance to the member of the Nine Demon Gates who tortured and fought Erza. "I'm glad there was enough left of her to absorb after the incident at Tartaros. I don't like causing pain, but thankfully, she had other ways to use her abilities…" Erza knows what this is referring to as well, thanks to Neinhart's Historias and her own fight with Kyouka.

Dimaria tries to leap out of Mirajane's range, but Mira's claw-like fingers extend, managing to clip Dimaria's leg. Rather than pain, the sensation she feels is the exact opposite – even from so light of a touch, she moans out loud, her exposed cheeks gradually turning red as she realizes what Mirajane's doing to her. "Thou shalt not make a mockery of a god!"

"And why not? Hearing you make that kind of noise was pretty fun." Mirajane's smile turns more sinister as she leaps forward. The demon's offense is relentless as she continues to swipe at the time mage. "Let's hear some more moans – maybe a bit of pleasure will make you stop being so high and mighty, and bring you down to earth."

Taking a break from his assault on the golem, Laxus uses his new vantage point to fire a column of electricity from his mouth, aiming for Dimaria. As Mirajane slashes at the other woman again, Dimaria smirks, grabbing Mirajane's claw and tossing her into the lightning's path. Mirajane yells as the electricity runs through her body before falling to the stone floor. Smoke rises from Fairy Tail's demon as Dimaria laughs haughtily.

"Divine judgment – 'tis a fitting end for one as wicked as thyself." She walks over to Mirajane, intending to rub it in her face before helping Ajeel with double-teaming Laxus. To her shock, Mirajane rises to her feet almost immediately.

"Guess I'm not used to fighting in this form…" Glancing over her shoulder, she glares back at Laxus. "…And if you know what's good for you, don't try that again."

Laxus stubbornly glares back, but a bead of sweat drips down the side of his face. "Figured you could use the help, but if you don't need it, I'll try to stay out of your way."

"Good." Mirajane turns her attention back to Dimaria, but she has one last remark for Laxus. "And get rid of that thing, would you?"

"With pleasure." Electricity gathers in Laxus's fist as he raises it into the air. The sand creature raises its hand with the intention of squashing Laxus like a bug, but it's far too late for that. "Lightning Dragon's Breakdown Fist!" Laxus punches the golem's head, sending a lightning blast in the shape of a fist through it. The fist grows in size and speed as it gets further down the golem's body, and upon reaching the ground, it detonates in a massive explosion, launching sand in all directions.

Ajeel flips in mid-air, landing on his feet – he's singed, but the golem absorbed most of the damage. "You did well to beat one of my creations, but how will you deal with an army?"

Without waiting to explain, Ajeel raises his hands, and the clumps of sand that landed in the arena turn into miniature versions of the golem. Ajeel sits on the head of one of them, and the dozens of golems charge at Laxus. While Laxus can punch through them with ease, they reform moments later, forcing him to keep his attention in all directions at once.

Not helping matters is the fact that Ajeel himself is no idle spectator. "Ramal Sayf!" He's leaping from golem to golem, firing sand projectiles at Laxus, and the sand moves so quickly that it might as well be a hail of bullets.

However, with all of his leaping around, some of his projectiles go astray, and as Laxus dodges some, he sees that they're flying in his teammate's direction. "Dimaria, look out!"

All Dimaria hears, however, is "Dimaria, l-" before everything goes silent. Turning to see what Ajeel's talking about, her eyes widen as she sees the sand flying towards her. She uses time magic to slow the sand projectiles down, but as she's distracted, Mirajane claws at her back. Seeing as Mirajane's using Kyouka's enhancement curse to boost her own massive strength even further, the attack is incredibly effective.

All four mages are winded, but they still have a long way to go until they're beaten. With a roar, Dimaria stretches out her arms and spreads her fingers. With only a slight glow to serve as a warning, lasers fire from the tips of her fingers towards Mirajane and Laxus. Laxus dashes out of the way, while Mirajane realizes that Kyouka has no ranged attacks to counter Dimaria's beams with. Narrowly dodging and ducking the beams, Mirajane shifts to Satan Soul: Halphas before returning the barrage of beams in kind. Once she does this, the effects of Kyouka's curse ends, returning Dimaria to normal.

The battle continues for several painstaking minutes, with neither side able to land a decisive blow on the other. Ajeel summons a seemingly endless horde of sand golems, shifting from one to the other effortlessly while Laxus smashes his way through them. The golems also occasionally pass between Mirajane and Dimaria, but they are effortlessly destroyed as the two women slash at each other and blast each other with devastating lasers.

By this point, the entire arena resembles a warzone. Barriers have been put up as a precaution to protect the spectators, as craters and holes litter the arena floors and walls.

As the mages continue to fight, a gong rings out over the explosions, lightning bolts, and the roaring of the crowd. Levy picks up her microphone, previously too stunned from watching the chaos to do much in the way of commentating. "T-Time! The half hour time limit is up, and since no fighters have been eliminated on either side, both teams get five points!"

" _WHAT?!_ " All four fighters are annoyed – they wanted to get a definitive finish to this match, even if it takes the rest of the day.

"Hey, shrimp! Just say our team won already! We were doing way better!" Gajeel yells at the commentator's box, and Levy can't help but smile.

"Sorry, rules are rules. And besides, I'm supposed to be impartial with my commentary." Levy signals towards the scoreboard, and it changes to reflect the new standings.

 **Crime Sorciere: 28**

 **Fairy Tail One: 25**

 **Fairy Tail A: 21**

 **Mermaid Heel: 20**

 **Alvarez: 14**

 **Sabertooth: 13**

 **Blue Pegasus: 4**

 **Lamia Scale: 3**

"Our next competitors have the most to prove – the winning team will catch up to the rest, while the losing team will be stuck at the bottom! It's Lamia Scale versus Blue Pegasus – who will be triumphant? Who will come out on top? Find out… in about half an hour, because we need time to repair the stadium after those last two fights!" With Mato's announcement, it's time for an intermission, giving the crowd time to buy snacks and merchandise or simply relax.

As Wendy rushes off to help with healing the wounds of the wounded mages (aside from the members of Alvarez) and Erza leaves to check on Kagura and Millianna, Natsu stares at the list of match-ups as his eyes are lit up with excitement.

Getting a chance to take on Sabertooth may not be as meaningful as last time, since they were no longer the sort of people who tortured and laughed at helpless mages, or kicked their own comrades out of the guild for being too weak. However, with how much stronger people like Sting and Rogue had gotten over the past few years, it's bound to be a fun match.

 **I felt like a tie would be the best way to finish the last match. While it's probably annoying to leave things inconclusive, it would be hard to take Alvarez seriously as a threat if they lost in almost every competition. At the same time, Laxus is strong enough to take on one of the Spriggan Twelve solo and Mirajane doesn't get much time to show off, so having them lose wouldn't go well either.**

 **Next time, we have Lamia Scale vs. Blue Pegasus and Fairy Tail A vs. Sabertooth. Clearly, the latter is the highlight (with one particular option seeming to have a commanding lead at this point), but don't forget to show some love to Lamia Scale and Blue Pegasus as well!**


	9. Dragons and Stars

**I apologize for the delay for this chapter. I didn't** _ **mean**_ **to keep people in suspense, but it's been a busy week. It's hard to believe that Fairy Tail (the manga, at least – the new season of the anime starts some time in 2018) has finished, but the series had a good run, and the final chapter was a fitting end in a lot of ways.**

 **I might go back and make a few edits to older chapters, but nothing too drastic – as far as I can tell, the only thing I'd need to change would be Hisui's status.**

Erza forces her way through the medical personnel, clearly annoyed at any delay that keeps her from seeing her friends, but as it turns out, she didn't need to. Kagura, Millianna, and Ultear have already regained consciousness – with the Sensory Link disabled, the injuries weren't nearly as severe on their own as they were when they were all added together. Ultear's side is being bandaged, and the other two have bruises, but otherwise, it shouldn't take long for them to be out and about again.

Meredy is sticking close to Ultear, partially to catch up and partially to guard her if Kagura or Millianna try anything. The Mermaid Heel mages don't seem interested in getting revenge on Ultear, though – when Erza arrives, their attention is entirely on her.

"Erza!" Wendy looks up from using a healing spell on Laxus, who's trying to brush her off. "Don't worry, they're almost done."

"Good." Erza's grateful for Wendy's presence, as it makes the recovery process go so much smoother for everyone. Walking over to the Mermaid Heel mages, she wraps them in a big hug. Millianna gleefully returns it, while Kagura's more awkward about it. "You both did great out there."

Kagura shakes her head, clearly disagreeing with that sentiment. "No, I… got sloppy. I was too focused on payback, when I should have been thinking more clearly." She locks her eyes on Ultear. "The next time we fight, I assure you it will go differently."

Ultear chuckles – she can tell from Kagura's gaze that the same fires of hatred aren't there any more after their feelings were linked together. Kagura's changed, even if it's only a little - the fact that the two of them can be in the same room without Kagura trying to attack her speaks volumes about how much of a difference Meredy's spell has made. "All right, I'll be sure to be careful."

Once they've checked up on their friends, and Wendy has completed her rounds, Erza and Wendy return to the stands to see that the next match is just starting. From Blue Pegasus, Eve and Jenny are making their way onto the battlegrounds. Meanwhile, from the Lamia Scale side, the crowd selected Chelia and Yuka, much to the relief of Eve and Jenny. If _Jura_ had been chosen, then Ichiya would have been the only one on their team who could stand a chance, and that's certainly not a sure thing.

Eve, of course, jumps straight to flirting. "Could it be Lamia Scale's Sky Goddess? It seems as though fate has brought us together on this field of battle. Why don't we spend the night seeing the sights of Crocus, just the two of us?"

Chelia giggles, finding his behaviour funny more than anything else. "I'm flattered, but my love belongs to someone else."

"Come on, Chelia!" Wendy calls out from the stands to support her friend, but it's drowned out by the roar of the crowd.

"You will have to be louder, Wendy – she will not hear you like that," Carla says, trying to offer advice.

Jura looks out at the arena, unsure about his team's chances. "Are you sure this will work? I haven't spent much time at the guild thanks to my Magic Council duties, but from what I've heard about Chelia's magic…"

Lyon shakes his head. While she had to start from scratch, Lyon still believes in his guildmate. "She's gotten a lot better in the past few months. It's hard to say for sure, but while she might not be at the same level as the last time she competed, she's still going to be strong enough."

Eve sighs dramatically, but readies himself for battle. "Disappointing, but I will not get in the way of a woman's love. In that case, I will prepare myself for battle!"

"I've got the perfect counter to your wind attacks!" Jenny's body changes, and it looks as though she's wearing a castle made of steel as a dress. "Machine Soul: Iron Fortress Gal-"

"Wave." With a gesture, Yuka launches one of his anti-magic projectiles at Jenny, negating her transformation and returning her to normal. The model barely has time to react before Chelia dashes in front of her, dark winds surrounding her arms.

"Sky God's Dance!" Spinning around, Chelia causes a dark tornado to form around the Blue Pegasus mages, who are launched into the air.

"And…" Inhaling briefly, she breathes out a black wall of air that flies upwards. "Sky God's Bellow!" Eve's magic isn't useful for defending himself, and since Jenny couldn't reactivate her magic in time, both of the Blue Pegasus mages are hit by the full force of the attack. Neither one is known for their durability, so they aren't going to be able to weather such a ferocious storm.

"That is why you should not underestimate Lamia Scale." Turning away from the fight, Yuka heads towards the edge of the arena as Jenny and Eve come crashing down, unconscious. Chelia stumbles a little, but follows closely behind.

After that brief battle, Chapati takes to the microphone. "That was incredible! Wasn't that incredible, everyone?"

Yajima speaks up as well. "Next, we have a rematch that any long-time fans of the Grand Magic Games should remember. The match-up won't be the same, but I'm sure everyone's waiting with baited breath regardless."

Levy, of course, is enthusiastic about this. "It's time for Fairy Tail versus Sabertooth!" The crowd erupts in cheers – for many, this is going to be the highlight of the day, no matter which mages are involved.

As the votes are tabulated, it's clear that Natsu and Sting have a massive lead for their teams – while a rematch of Natsu and Gajeel vs. Sting and Rogue isn't possible given the team line-ups, people clearly want to see the two Dragon Slayers face off again. For the teams, it's the second member who's more surprising.

"M-Me?" Lucy stares in shock, as she watches her total rise above that of Erza, Gray, and Wendy.

"W-Wait, what?" Yukino is surprised as well, as her total narrowly edges out Minerva and Rogue's votes. Orga is slumped over in a corner; he has much less votes than the other four, which is a bit of a sore spot for him.

"All right! Come on, Yukino!" Sting wraps an arm around his guildmate's waist, as she tries to protest.

"Hold on, I- AAAAAAAH!" Without further warning, Sting leaps into the arena, taking Yukino with him.

"Heehee! That looks like fun! You ready, Lucy?" Natsu has a giant grin on his face as he turns to his teammate.

Lucy sighs, expecting that something like this would happen. "As ready as I'll ever be…" Natsu and Lucy follow suit, jumping into the arena.

"It's Dragon Slayer vs. Dragon Slayer, and Celestial Spirit mage vs. Celestial Spirit mage! All four of these mages have access to incredibly rare types of magic, so we're bound to get quite a show." Yajima turns to his fellow commentators. "Who do you think will win?"

Levy sweats a little, as she's unsure of what to say without coming across as biased. "Um… I'm sure you all know what I think. It's tough to think of more than a handful of people who could beat Natsu-san, and Lu-chan is really tough too!"

Chapati nods. "But Sabertooth definitely deserves its reputation. And having their… former… guild master in the battle will be a huge help!" In the crowd, Rufus is visibly dejected – nobody even makes the pretense of believing that his status as the new master is legitimate.

"It seems we're split on the matter, so the only thing left to do is see how this turns out. Let today's final match begin!"

A gong rings out to signal the start of the match, and immediately, the Dragon Slayers are on the offensive. "Fire Dragon's…"

"White Dragon's…"

"ROAR!" Natsu's fire breath and Sting's lasers collide, but it's a stalemate – the two blasts dissipate upon impact.

Natsu leaps through the dust cloud caused by the attacks to rain a barrage of blows upon Sting, who reacts quickly by countering and dodging. Lucy and Yukino are barely keeping up or trying to get out of the way, depending on how close the Dragon Slayers are.

Activating her Fleuve d'etoiles, an energy whip from the Celestial Spirit World, Lucy launches the whip at Sting. As Sting's too busy fighting Natsu, the whip wraps around his legs, sending him flying into the air.

"Thanks, Lucy!" Natsu gives Lucy a thumbs up before turning to Sting with a sinister look on his face. "Crimson Lotus…" As Sting falls back down to the ground, Natsu's fist ignites. "Fire Dragon's Fist!" Sting holds up his arms to defend himself, but Natsu hits him with a rapid series of punches, with each punch producing a powerful explosion. Sting can't block all of them, and the force of the explosions sends him flying into the air – Lucy's nearly taken along with him before she deactivates her whip.

Sting smashes into the ground, but Natsu doesn't celebrate yet – the White Dragon Slayer groggily gets to his feet. "Is that all? I can't imagine anyone getting beaten by such a weak attack." In the crowd, Gajeel twitches, but says nothing.

"Heh – that's just a warm-up!" Lucy groans at Natsu's terrible pun, but Natsu lets out another Fire Dragon's Roar aimed at Sting.

"Open the Gate of the Paired Fish – Pisces!" Yukino's spirits make their second appearance for the day, blasting water in order to douse the flames that Natsu's created.

Grinning widely, Natsu charges at Yukino, readying his fist to strike. "So if I beat you, these two will be gone, right? Fire Dragon's…"

Acting quickly, the spirits launch a blast of water at Natsu, dousing the flame on his fist. The son points his trident at Natsu, a dramatic statement at the ready. "I won't let you hurt my mom!"

Yukino sighs at her spirit's continued confusion. "I keep telling you, I'm not your mom…"

While Natsu's annoyed by all of this water, Lucy smirks. "Sorry, Natsu, but now's the perfect time for my spirit to make her long-awaited reappearance! Open the Gate of the Water Bearer – Aquarius!"

The mermaid spirit appears in a flash, leaving the Celestial Spirit dimension for the material world. Her appearance brings cheers from the Mermaid Heel section of the crowd, who have heard about Aquarius and waited for a while to see her in action. She scans the battlefield, taking stock of the situation…

…and she glares at Lucy with an annoyed look on her face, causing a pit of dread to form in her summoner's stomach. "Why did you call me _here_ ,of all places? You interrupted my date with Scorpio!"

"…Um, well, I was hoping you could help me out here. Pisces uses water, so…"

Aquarius examines the aftermath of Pisces's attack and sighs. "You expect me to make due with these puddles?" A small smile crosses her face – given how little water there is, it seems clear enough to her that Lucy used Pisces's presence as an excuse to see her again, given that it's been such a long absence. "All right, just this once."

"You're the best, Aquarius!" In a flash of light, Lucy's outfit changes, becoming her Star Dress: Aquarius Form. While little more than a bikini top and a short skirt, it allows her to share her Celestial Spirit's power. As a result, the ground itself begins to swirl and flow like water as Aquarius and Lucy channel their magic into it.

"AQUA METRIA!" The two of them cry out at the same time, as the land bursts into the air, swirling and twisting like a typhoon. With Lucy and Aquarius in the eye of it, Sting, Yukino, Pisces, and Natsu (who was unfortunate enough to get caught up in it) are sent swirling around. Yukino would have Pisces counter-attack, but unfortunately, they consider this close enough to water that they revert to the state of tiny harmless fishes.

Recalling Pisces back to the Celestial Spirit world, Yukino brings out another spirit. "Open the Gate of the Heavenly Scales – Libra!" The dancer spirit appears, floating above Lucy and Aquarius. Using her gravity magic, the swirling earth is forced back down, and those who were caught up in it skid to a stop.

Aquarius shrugs her shoulders. "I can't think I'd be much more use here, so I'm heading back." She glances over her shoulder at Lucy, trying to look aloof. "I'll be quite busy, so don't call on me – or Scorpio – for the rest of the day, all right?" In the crowd, Brandish breathes a small sigh of relief.

Lucy grins. "Sure. It's great to have you back, Aquarius."

Aquarius nods before vanishing back into the world of stars. Libra returns as well, as Yukino summons Ophiucus. The massive snake's power is a mystery to most of the audience, as its previous appearance in the Grand Magic Games was quite literally cut short by Kagura slicing it in two, but as its massive body wraps around the Sabertooth mages, a green glow surrounds them.

"Hey, what are you doing?" As Lucy stares in shock at the hulking serpent, Natsu leaps into the air, punching in square in the nose. With tears in its eyes, the snake returns to the Celestial Spirit world, revealing that Sting and Yukino are completely uninjured despite what they've been through.

"Ophiucus-san's scales are great for healing. Unfortunately, she doesn't like fighting, even though she looks really intimidating." Yukino sighs – the legendary thirteenth Gold Key Spirit may have healing powers to rival Wendy or Chelia, but in a fight, it's not as threatening as its appearance would suggest. Deciding on another spirit, she pulls out a new key – a silver one this time.

Lucy immediately recognizes Yukino's spirit of choice. "Wait, is that…?"

Yukino nods. "Caelum." In response to its name, the floating gray orb transforms into a cannon, hovering in front of Yukino. "My sister gave it to me – she figured that, without her Gold Keys, I'd be able to put it to better use than she would."

Energy charges in the barrel of Caelum's cannon form, and it fires projectiles at the Fairy Tail mages, who scatter to keep it from hitting both of them. The cannon turns to follow Natsu, and Lucy sees her chance.

Acting quickly, she summons Virgo, who immediately grasps the situation. Burrowing underground, the maid digs her way towards the cannon, which is still focusing on Natsu. Natsu encourages this by trying to taunt the cannon, in spite of it having no visible consciousness. "You missed by a mile! You call that a shot?"

"How about _this_?" Shadows swarm around Sting, and he sinks into the ground. While he had previously used the White Shadow Dragon Slayer mode against Larcade, enough practice with Rogue allowed him to tap into it at will. Shadows form around Natsu – he leaps out of the way, but Sting sticks his head out from the shadows to fire a laser beam. Still in mid-air, Natsu can't do much to dodge the attack, so he gets hit in the shoulder.

Luckily, Virgo pops out of the ground, grabbing Caelum and slamming it into the ground so Natsu doesn't need to worry about additional blasts from behind. Natsu tries to counter attack, but Sting disappears back into the shadows, smirking.

From her vantage point, Lucy has an idea – it didn't seem like Sting could use his light-based attacks when he was hiding inside the shadows, so perhaps getting hit by light-based attacks would remove his cover? As Sting continues to pop in and out of the shadows, blasting beams at Natsu like a bizarre game of reverse Whack A Mole, Lucy changes to Leo's Star Dress.

Recognizing the symbol above Lucy's breast, Yukino changes Caelum to its sword form and dashes towards her. "I won't let you hurt Sting!"

She swings the sword at Lucy, who stands there confidently. Before Yukino can come close, Virgo's leg blocks it. "Virgo Kick!"

As Virgo fends off Yukino, Lucy leaps at Sting and Natsu, her leg outstretched. "Lucy Kiiiick!" Her leg is surrounded by light thanks to the power of Loke, and as the blinding light gets close, the shadows around Sting vanish. He twists to the side to avoid the kick, but this leaves an opening that Natsu exploits, punching him in the stomach.

Sting slides back from the force of the blow, and Natsu grins. Despite being hit by lasers and his body covered with bruises, he's still eager to fight. "So you're usin' another element, huh? I might as well too!"

Sting's grin widens – he hadn't pushed Natsu to this point in their last fight. "Bring it on! Let's see which dual element Dragon Slayer is better!"

"All right!" Lightning crackles around Natsu as he draws upon Laxus's power. Lucy immediately backs away.

"Um… Natsu… That seems a bit…" Natsu isn't concerned with Lucy's fears, as the two Dragon Slayers dash at each other, their fists at the ready.

"Lightning Fire Dragon's…"

"White Shadow Dragon's…"

" **Iron Fist!** " Once they're in range, both Dragon Slayers successfully land a devastating punch on the other's face. The battlefield erupts, as the spectators are temporarily blinded by the flash of light and lightning. When it fades, both Dragon Slayers are standing in the middle, surrounded by flames and eerie dark substances, while their Celestial Spirit mage partners have been blasted to the arena's edges.

The crowd holds its collective breath as they watch the two Dragon Slayers standing in the middle of the massive pile of debris that used to be the arena. After a few moments, both of them begin to slump over. Natsu and Sting fall to the ground with smiles on their faces, in spite of the fact that they are both unconscious. Meanwhile, the expressions on the faces of Lucy and Yukino are ones of shock, as both of them were sent flying by the explosion.

"A-A quadruple knock-out!" Indeed, of the four mages in the arena, none of them are capable of moving. With that, the points are adjusted to reflect this unusual turn of events.

 **Crime Sorciere: 28**

 **Fairy Tail A: 26**

 **Fairy Tail 1: 25**

 **Mermaid Heel: 20**

 **Sabertooth: 18**

 **Alvarez: 14**

 **Lamia Scale: 13**

 **Blue Pegasus: 4**

Gajeel is annoyed by this turn of events. "You're kidding me! All of that work, and we're _still_ one point behind Salamander's team?!"

Mirajane and Laxus make their way back to their team's section; despite how long their fight with Ajeel and Dimaria took, their wounds are mainly superficial, so it didn't take long to heal them. Mirajane pats Gajeel on the shoulder, trying to calm him down. "You haven't gotten a chance to compete yet, right? Maybe you'll help us pull ahead tomorrow!"

"Don't encourage him," Laxus mutters to Mirajane, but Gajeel is pumped up now.

"Geeheehee! You got that right!" Not even Laxus's comments could bring down Gajeel's mood. He would have preferred to win today, so that Levy could publicly sing his praises, but a victory at any point would be great to rub in the faces of his fellow Dragon Slayers.

Rogue looks at the scoreboard – Sabertooth is so close to the top, and yet so far. Still, unlike their last time being at the Grand Magic Games, they can take pride in what they have accomplished, regardless of their standing. "It's hard to believe how much stronger Sting's gotten. Last time, Natsu defeated both of us without even trying, and now…"

Orga nods. "Yukino's gotten better as well. I guess having someone to surpass has really helped us out."

As the crowd cheers for their favourite teams, two of the spectators move in closer, their true forms hidden by illusion magic. "Should we strike now?"

The other crowd member, disguised as a plump woman, shakes their head. "We need to be patient. Last time, we acted too quickly and paid the price. Our forces should be here tomorrow, and we can strike then."

"But your son, he's…"

"My _son_ isn't the only strong mage here." The word 'son' was practically spat out with enough venom to keep Cobra fed for a week. "There are a few others who need to be weakened, but if we pull this off, we'll be set for life."

"All right, we'll wait." With that, the two members of the crowd cheer with enthusiasm that's as false as their appearances, trying to blend in. As the competitors are carted off the field to have their injuries healed and court mages are called in to try bringing the stadium back to normal, the crowd disperses. The second day has finished, and the gambling community is torn – a single match could completely alter the standings of the top five, and nobody's willing to count out the bottom three either.

Later that night, the throne room, normally respectfully silent, is abuzz with activity. Palace guards try to object, but the queen of Fiore has no problem with letting the master of Fairy Tail visit. Fairy Tail's eighth guild master briefly summarizes what he had heard from Carla, trying to stay calm throughout despite the urgency of the situation. When he finishes, Makarov bows his head lower, hoping that the newly-coronated Queen Hisui will listen. "Please, your majesty – if you're planning to use the Eclipse Gate, you must let us know!"

Hisui smiles – even though she's the queen now, she's not used to this kind of behaviour. "You say that Carla's visions are never wrong?"

Makarov nods. "The events in them always come to pass." Sure, they may be out of order, or they might be interpreted differently depending on context, but there's no misinterpreting some of the events shown there. "Your life may be in danger, and if someone's planning to use the Eclipse Gate to bring dragons into the present… We barely survived the last time someone did that."

"There's no need to worry about that." Hisui stares off into space, reminiscing. "When it seemed as though your negotiations with Alvarez wouldn't work, when people weren't certain if you were alive or dead, my father _did_ consider having the Eclipse Gate rebuilt. However, rebuilding a gate doesn't make it the same gate – we found that we could only go back to the moment when the new gate was built, a few minutes beforehand. The Eclipse plan was flawed from the start, since it was only built _after_ Zeref had become immortal and _after_ Acnologia became a dragon, but we had no way of knowing that at the time."

Makarov is relieved by that; altering time seems like a tricky business, and one that would inevitably result in countless unforeseen consequences. "So there's no way for anyone to use the gate to bring back dragons?"

Hisui nods. "The remnants of the new gate were destroyed, as were the plans. The Eclipse Gate was meant by Anna Heartfilia and Zeref to bring hope to the future, and to stop Acnologia. With Acnologia dead, it is no longer necessary."

Makarov sighs. "Thank you – that is all that I needed to hear." Getting to his feet, he walks out of the throne room. Ever since his revival, walking for long periods of time has been difficult, but he did not want to risk appearing disrespectful by being wheeled in. Now that the Queen's aware of a possible attempt on her life, hopefully the necessary precautions will be taken.

As for the dragon, the threat still existed, but if time travel was not an option, it would have to come from the present. That made things easier – Mest was good at keeping quiet, so he could look into this matter without drawing attention to himself. Looking into Dragon Slayer lacrima would be a start – while gaining that power through lacrima may not come with the risk of transforming into a dragon, technology has advanced so much over the years that perhaps someone could use it to force a transformation.

While Makarov wants to celebrate with his guild – staying in second and third place, especially with how tough the competition is, is no easy feat – his concerns weigh heavily upon his mind. He had been hoping that, with the deaths of Acnologia and Zeref, this peace would last for quite some time, but now it seems like another storm is threatening to engulf them all.

 **Now that Fairy Tail has ended, my question for reviewers is this: what other manga series do you enjoy reading?**

 **As far as weekly releases go, I only read One Piece, though I decided to look into My Hero Academia after hearing how much it was praised and wound up catching up to it over the course of two days! There's plenty of other series I like (such as Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, One Punch Man, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure), and for something outside of fighting series, Eyeshield 21 (a football manga) is fantastic, both in terms of artwork and writing.**

 **As a preview for the next round's one-on-one match-ups, two of the fights will be Blue Pegasus vs. Fairy Tail One (Gajeel's team) and Sabertooth vs. Mermaid Heel. What will the other two be? Stay tuned to find out!**


	10. Kings and Queens

**We're now on the third day of the Grand Magic Games, not to mention the tenth chapter! I'm glad that I've been able to receive enough support to motivate me to continue writing this for ten chapters. All of the views and reviews, along with the feedback and suggestions, have really helped to push me forward with writing this, and I can't thank you enough for your support.**

The third day of the Grand Magic Games had officially begun, with today's event being King of the Hill. However, as expected for the Grand Magic Games, there was a twist – as long as you were inside the space, no matter how many people were in there or how high above it you were, you got points. The contest takes place on a massive stone pillar in the middle of water. The platform stretches high above the water, with steel ladders leading back up to the top; getting knocked off might not eliminate you, but it would certainly take a while to get back up.

"Today, it's Mermaid Heel's victory!" Arana cheers before leaping into action. Doing whatever a spider can, she shoots a web at the stadium's walls to launch herself over to the glowing red spot that they'll be fighting over. She quickly webs her feet to the ground, seemingly guaranteeing that Mermaid Heel will get points as long as her webbing holds up… only to stare in shock as the red circle slowly begins to move away from the center.

Yajima chuckles, watching the carnage unfold as Arana desperately tries to tear her own webbing off. "Of course, it would be too simple to have the area where you score points remain stationary."

Rala, a guest commentator from the Sylph Labyrinth treasure hunting guild, has a bead of sweat dripping down his face as he watches the event. His face remains as dramatically stoic as ever, though. "Is this what the Grand Magic Games is always like? Dun, dun, dun…"

Chapati shakes his head. "Admittedly, some of the spectacle comes from today's… _particularly_ enthusiastic competitors."

Laxus doesn't seem too concerned with scoring points at the moment, flinging himself at Jura. "Hey, Jura! Why don't you take a swim and let other people have some fun?"

Jura shakes his head, and a pillar of rock bursts out of the ground, launching Laxus into the air. "I'm afraid I cannot rest today. Lamia Scale, and the title of Wizard Saint, have both been looked down upon as of late, and I am here to remind you of why both of those should not be underestimated." Jura is keeping close to the point, easily fending off anyone who gets too close.

Laxus flies straight up in the air, narrowly missing Ren. The Blue Pegasus mage immediately took advantage of the lack of height restrictions, using his air magic to hover over the goal area and score points for Blue Pegasus. With monsters like Jura and Laxus on the ground, nobody could blame him for staying out of the fighting.

Down on the ground, Jura wasn't the only one manipulating the earth to his advantage. The Lamia Scale mage brings up a large rock in front of him, narrowly blocking a spiralling drill made from sand. "Wizard Saint? Who cares about that?" Ajeel laughs. "Serena was a Wizard Saint, and look what that got him!"

Ajeel tries to use Jura's distraction to get on the point, but he finds that his feet have been frozen to the ground. Gray runs past him, smirking. "He was also one of the Spriggan Twelve – didn't help him too much." As Ajeel curses Gray, the Fairy Tail mage steps inside the glowing red marker.

"Hm… You've gotten faster at casting your ice magic. Good…" Gray hears a feminine voice behind him and turns, but he doesn't turn fast enough – Ultear kicks him in the side, knocking him over the edge of the pillar. Acting quickly, Gray forms a bridge between himself and the pillar, preventing him from falling in the water.

Laxus finally hits the ground, a bit of blood dripping from his mouth. "Guess you've still got it."

Taking advantage of the lightning mage's apparent distraction, Orga leaps at Laxus – the Sabertooth mage had immediately volunteered when he saw that the Lightning Dragon Slayer was taking part. His enthusiasm doesn't do him much good, however, as Laxus backhands him away without even looking at him.

"It's a shame that stopping time has been banned – it's almost as though they were rigging the competition against me." Ultear chuckles as she watches Laxus, Arana, and Ajeel rush at the point. "It's a good thing that I have many other ways to defend myself." Spinning around, Ultear launches several crystal balls that spin around her to act as a defensive wall. The orbs smack Arana away, but they turn to dust upon colliding with Ajeel. Meanwhile, Laxus simply smashes through them, the aura of lightning around him negating any damage.

Seeing that her strategy isn't going to work as well as she hoped, Ultear leaps out of the way, causing Ajeel and Laxus to headbutt each other. While in midair, Ultear shoots more crystal balls at Ren – she's well aware of what he's doing, unlike most of the other competitors, and she won't let him get away with it. Ren barely notices in time that he's being attacked, and narrowly swerves out of the way of the glass orbs.

"Get out of here, punk! This is my territory!" Ajeel prepares to launch a torrent of sand at Laxus, but as he steps forward, his foot lands on a sloped patch of ice. He slips on it, falling outside of the point.

Gray grins as he sees the result of his attack. "Ice Make: Slide! Fairy Tail mages have to stick together!" Trying to prove that point, he leaps into the scoring area, only to be knocked out of it by Laxus.

Laxus grins, amused by Gray's actions and enthusiasm, but not willing to hold back on his guildmate. "Don't get carried away; I'm here to win."

"As am I, a fact which is most unfortunate for the rest of you." Stomping one of his sandals on the ground, Jura causes the entire pillar to warp and deform. Within moments, the entire thing practically explodes, changing from a smooth and uniform construction to chaotic and jagged. Rocks are jutting off everywhere, and many of the competitors are knocked into the water. The only exceptions are Ren, who was high enough to avoid it, Jura himself, and Ajeel, who turns the surrounding rocks into sand.

The pillar returns to normal, but thanks to Jura's efforts, many of the rungs of the ladders have been destroyed. This isn't a problem for most of the mages, however; Gray makes his own ladders, while Arana shoots out webs to climb her way back up. Ultear rewinds time locally so the ladder that she's climbing on was never destroyed, while Orga and Laxus have enough physical strength to simply leap up the gaps in the ladders.

As Laxus grabs on to one of the rungs, he finds that he can't lift his arm off of it. Looking at his hand, he finds it frozen to the ladder, and he immediately glares in Gray's direction. Gray grins at his guildmate. "Think of it as payback. See you at the top, Laxus!" Growling, electricity shoots out of Laxus's hand as the ice shatters, and he leaps up at a much faster pace, less concerned about overshooting his destination and falling back down.

Once he reaches the top, Laxus charges at Jura, who surrounds himself in a dome of rock to keep Laxus away. "That won't save you, baldy!" Leaping on top of the dome, Laxus begins to batter at it, gaining points for his team all the while.

"…Baldy?" The dome raises out of the ground, forming a replica of Jura's head. "Such an insult shall not stand!" The stone head swings forward, knocking Laxus to the ground, and inside of it, Jura brings his hands together. "Rumbling Mount Fuji!"

The area in front of the head is immediately struck with a massive tower of magical energy; Laxus is so dazed by his sudden collision with the ground that he can't dodge in time. Even a mage of Laxus's calibre is going to need time to recover from that attack, and everyone present wisely decides to avoid making Jura angry in the future.

The side of the face dissolves, as it is converted into sand. "Lamia Mail, or whatever you are, isn't the only team that has been looked down upon in this stupid competition!" Ajeel grins, seeing no reason to hold back; he doesn't need to be seen inside of the light in order to get points, since it senses the energy of each competitor and awards them accordingly. "Sand World!"

Immediately, all of Crocus is thrown into a violent sandstorm. Brandish immediately breaks into a sneezing fit, cursing Ajeel for his actions. Not wanting to avoid wandering off the platform or into someone like Laxus or Jura, many of the combatants stay where they are, with only a few who saw where Ajeel was before he attacked moving towards him.

"See this? This is the power of Alvarez!" Ajeel's carefully following the hill, so caught up in his gloating that he fails to notice Orga behind him until the black lightning hits him in the back, knocking him away from the central point and breaking the concentration that keeps Sand World up.

"The power of Alvarez doesn't seem too impressive to me. You lot aren't the only ones with something to prove." Orga steps inside the point, and after he spends about a minute fending off the other competitors, the sound of the gong being hit echoes through the stadium as time runs out.

Jura had spent the most time on the point by a massive margin, with Ajeel in a distant second. Surprising most of the competitors, Ren finished in third – he occasionally had to move out of the point in order to dodge attacks, but otherwise, his strategy of staying out of the fighting had helped quite a bit.

Laxus was fourth, having spent a lot of his time trying to knock out Jura as opposed to scoring for his team. Orga got fifth, while Gray landed in sixth thanks to the sheer number of monsters present. Ultear's magic wasn't suited to a competition like this – Racer or Jellal would have been a better fit – so she wound up in seventh, and Arana came in eighth place; after her initial blunder with webbing her feet to the ground, she rarely managed to get on the point.

With that, the scores for the games are updated, and the loudest cheer comes out from the Lamia Scale section of the crowd as their score jumps up by ten.

 **Crime Sorciere: 29**

 **Fairy Tail One: 29**

 **Fairy Tail A: 28**

 **Lamia Scale: 23**

 **Alvarez: 22**

 **Sabertooth: 21**

 **Mermaid Heel: 18**

 **Blue Pegasus: 10**

Chapati's eyes widen as he looks at the scoreboard. "It could be anyone's game, folks! All it takes is one win for most of these teams to jump up to the top of the scoreboard!"

Somewhere in the stadium, the conspirators grin. Things had worked out better than they had hoped – they had been planning to strike today anyway, but now that Laxus, Jura, _and_ one of the Alvarez mages have been injured, the timing is just too perfect.

"That was entertaining. If you'll excuse me, Queen Hisui, I've heard that Alvarez-themed merchandise is now available, and I'm interested to see how my empire's mages are represented." Invel takes his leave, and once he's gone, two of the guards grin knowingly to each other.

As the arena is returned to normal in the aftermath of the event, Arcadios walks up to Hisui, who turns to him and smiles. "Thank you for all of your work, Arcadios – this year's Grand Magic Games couldn't have gone as smoothly as it has without you behind the scenes."

Arcadios smirks at that comment. "Thank you, my lady. Now, as payback, there's something that you could do for me…" Before Hisui can react, Arcadios's arm darts out, and he grabs the queen, quickly holding a knife to her throat. One of the soldiers brings a lacrima vision camera over to Arcadios, whose appearance quickly changes along with his voice. "Attention, spectators of the Grand Magic Games! Your queen's life is in my hands! Do not worry, there is a way to end this without any bloodshed!"

Makarov glares at the screens, as he immediately recognizes the face on them. "Ivan…" Indeed, his own son is holding the queen hostage. In the royal box, the illusions disguising the two soldiers fade, revealing Kurohebi and Nullpudding, two former members of Raven Tail.

"What have you done with Arcadios?" Even in a situation like this, the queen is more concerned for the life of her subjects than her own.

"He'll live, _if_ you all do as I say." Dark spirits appear along the aisles, many of them holding large sacks, and illusory disguises fade within the audience, revealing that several of the audience members are actually thieves and bandits. "Hand over your valuables and cash to my collectors, and nobody will be harmed. And in case anyone gets the idea to stop me," Ivan adds as he sees many of the mages prepared to fight, "don't, unless you want to be the ones to blame for the deaths of so many innocent people."

"Eeeheeheehee!" From the back row, the mad cackling of one of Ivan's conspirators can clearly be heard. "Now who's number one, Fairy Tail? You can't do a thing to stop us!"

Gajeel growls, as he immediately recognizes that voice. "You've got to be kidding me…"

Juvia's body turns to water; she's tempted to attack this new arrival on principle. After all, this is their former guildmaster, Jose Porla. Nobody had heard from him since the time that Phantom Lord had assaulted Fairy Tail. After they had broken the rules of the Magic Council so brazenly, the members of Phantom Lord had been brought in for questioning, but every single one of them rightfully blamed Jose for the attack, so they were let go while Jose took the full brunt of the punishment. Stripped of his Wizard Saint title and his guild, and forced to spend five years in jail, many figured that Jose would just fade away, but clearly revenge was on his mind.

Ivan figured he could trust Jose's spirits to collect the money – when he came to Ivan seeking an alliance, Jose made it clear that he wasn't interested in riches. This mindset baffled Ivan, but Jose wanted to restart his guild, now dubbed Neo Phantom Lord, and such a public humiliation of the strongest mages in Ishgar would make for an outstanding advertising opportunity.

Nullpudding waddles over to Ivan, whispering to him. "Boss, we haven't heard back from Flare or Obra. It's a shame – they'd be a huge help with something like this."

A red hand made from hair grabs on to the edge of the royal box. The Raven Tail mages tense up, but relax when they realize it's Flare. "Glad you made it – I wasn't sure if you'd even be able to _read_ my invitation." With his hands occupied, Ivan gestures over to the door with his head. "Alvarez's emperor should be heading back soon – keep an eye out so we know when to get out of here."

Kurohebi brings a microphone over to Ivan, who begins bellowing into it. "What are you waiting for? Does your queen's life mean so little to you that -" He catches a glimpse of something wrapped around his wrist. "…Eh?"

His eyes follow the hair wrapped around his arm all the way back to Flair's head. "I'm done following orders from you." Flare sounds calm, but the hair tightens, causing Ivan to yelp with pain and drop the knife. "I only came here so I could turn all of you over to the guards – I wanted to look super cool in front of Blondie."

"N-Nullpudding!" As Flare's hair wraps around Ivan's neck, Nullpudding leaps at his former guildmate, his arms inflating as spikes burst out of them. Flare releases Ivan to defend herself, her hair coming together to form a thick tendril as she swats him out of the air.

"Now, where were…" Flare turns to Ivan and Kurohebi, but they've managed to escape.

"Wait, don't leave me here with this psycho!" Nullpudding tries to run by Flare, but her hair tendrils wrap around him and lift him into the air.

"Darn, I wanted to beat Ivan. Guess I'll settle for some grilled pufferfish." Flare giggles, and as Nullpudding starts to cowardly babble about anything that might get him out of this, her hair bursts into flames. The flames are visible from the crowd, causing the mercenaries and shadows to pause as they realize that something's gone horribly wrong.

Nullpudding collapses to the ground once Flare releases him, burned and twitching. The real Arcadios bursts into the room, having fought his way through Raven Tail's hired goons, and grabs the microphone. "Any mage who is capable of doing so, do not let any of Raven Tail's conspirators escape!"

"It seems I've missed something rather dramatic." Invel makes his way into the royal booth, clutching shopping bags. "And here I thought I had time to buy some souvenirs – the craftsmanship of some of these vendors is remarkable." He pulls out a small figure of Ajeel to demonstrate.

Arcadios _would_ be suspicious of Invel's sudden absence, but he's certainly not involved in all of this – there's bound to be enough eyewitnesses to support where he was, and Alvarez would have nothing to gain from an action like this when their empire was still recovering from the war. His suspicions are further lowered as Invel strides over to the microphone, grabbing it. "That goes double for the mages of Alvarez. We cannot allow these Dark Guilds to sully the name of our former emperor."

In the hallways, Ivan and Kurohebi have split up, reasoning that one of them should be able to escape. Kurohebi's face turns paler as he hears the announcement that it's open season on Raven Tail. "That's not good…"

Meanwhile, Bacchus is stumbling through the corridors, completely wasted and looking for some food. "Lousy Grand Magic Games… I could've qualified if those newbies didn't show up…" Kurohebi turns the corner and nearly runs into the snake-like mage. "Huh? Watch where you're goin'!"

"Crap!" Leaping back, Kurohebi gets into a fighting stance. "Can't go back the way I came – guess I've got to get past you!"

Bacchus grins. "Oh, it's a fight you want? Why didn't you say so?" Despite swaying back and forth, he keeps his eyes locked on his opponent.

Kurohebi isn't thrilled with this turn of events, but Quatro Cerberus was never the strongest team in the games – maybe he stands a chance of escaping. "I'll defeat you with your own magic!" His palms glowing, Kurohebi starts forward with snakelike speed to strike, but Bacchus swerves out of the way at the last moment.

"That's a laugh." Bacchus's fluid movements are too unpredictable for Kurohebi to keep up with. One moment, the Raven Tail mage is standing there, cursing the choices that he made in life which led him to this moment, and in the next moment, Bacchus's hands have slammed into him, embedding him into the nearest brick wall. "Now where's the nearest food cart?" Bacchus takes another swig from his gourd and stumbles off, leaving the Raven Tail mage unconscious.

Meanwhile, Ivan is fleeing for his life. The guards that he's encountered were easily dispatched, but he doesn't want to risk an encounter with any mages when he's on his own. Unfortunately, that's exactly what he's going to get, as he spots a familiar silhouette in front of him. " _You!_ "

"Yes, son, it's me." Makarov is standing before him, a glum look on his face. "It's over – you must realize that."

Ivan laughs bitterly. "Over? I have an army of mercenaries out there – I just need to say the word and-"

"They've ran off, or at least tried to. When that girl turned the tables, it was clear that they weren't going to get paid." Despite being faced with the head of this attack, Makarov isn't making any kind of aggressive moves. "The shadows are gone as well. I assume Jose is trying to escape, much like you are. All these years, I've meant to ask, why would you go through all of this trouble? Why do you hate Fairy Tail so much?"

Raven Tail's master scoffs at that. "I don't hate Fairy Tail, old man – I hate you! The First and Precht may not have had kids of their own, but _you_ did! You should have retired _long_ before I left the guild, and made me the Master!"

Makarov shakes his head. "It doesn't work like that. I needed to find a worthy successor…"

"And I wasn't worthy enough? Look at the people who became the Master after you did! I'd accept Macao since pickings were slim, and even _I_ could have told you that Gildarts wouldn't have worked out, but then your guild let some snot-nosed _brat_ take over when you were in Alvarez?"

"That 'snot-nosed brat', as you call her, is one of the most dedicated members of the guild, and like a child to me. She's done better at both of those jobs than you ever did." Makarov's fury is leaking through now, and his hands are balled into fists. "All of the years that you were in the guild, and you used my name as a shield, cringing behind it when you thought it would benefit you. Did you think I wasn't aware of you used your relationship to me to try and get more money out of our customers? Or that you took illegal jobs on the side and told people that you could do anything you wanted and get away with it because you were my flesh and blood? Even your own _son_ tried to make a name for himself and wanted to get out of my shadow, but you hid behind it."

Ivan is shocked at this – he thought he had covered his tracks so well. "Y-You knew?"

"I didn't punish you at the time because I hoped that you could realize the error of your ways, and I only excommunicated you when you fled the guild. I can see now that I was mistaken." Makarov's arm swipes out, and it's clear that he doesn't want anything more to do with Ivan. "Turn yourself over, and take your punishment like a man. Otherwise, you can stay out of my sight, cowering in the shadows."

Not interested in taking his father up on that offer, Ivan immediately runs away, leaving Makarov to shake his head. "Good grief… Where did I go wrong with that boy?" Footsteps echo from the other end of the hall, and Makarov turns to face them. "What is it now?"

The footsteps echo louder and louder until Phantom Lord's former guildmaster emerges from the shadows. "M-Makarov?" A look of shock is plastered on Jose's face, but it morphs into a confident grin. "It seems today isn't a total loss. Now I can have my revenge!"

Fairy Tail's master sighs, shaking his head. "It's like this is a parade of fools. No matter – I will stop you."

Jose skids to a stop, dark energy swirling around his hands. "What are you waiting for? Use Fairy Law! You'll take out all of us in one fell swoop!"

Makarov plants his feet firmly on the ground, placing his hands together. "Very well – I don't want to waste the second chance that I have been given, but taking out someone like you shouldn't be much of a risk. By the laws of Fairy Tail, I shall give you until the count of three to surrender. One…"

Jose's grin widens – this is perfect! For the past nine years, he has been studying magic to find the counter for Fairy Law, the only thing that could possibly stop him. Now it's time to show the world that Phantom Lord, even broken and scattered, is still the number one guild!

"Two…"

"Phantom Mirror!" Spreading his arms wide, Jose conjures a massive mirror lined with skulls in front of him. This spell was supposed to reflect any light magic cast on it back on its user, making it the perfect defense against Fairy Law.

Jose waits for the flash of light, but it never comes. Instead, cracks form in the back of the mirror, and Jose barely has time to shriek before Makarov's massive fist bursts through it and hits him dead on. The force of the punch sends Jose flying down the hall, bouncing off the ground until he comes to a stop at the feet of the guards who had been chasing him.

"A _child_ could have seen through that ploy. I have no idea why they made you a member of the Ten Wizard Saints." Clutching his back, Makarov heads back to his seat. Ivan's still out there, but he's confident that someone will find him.

Ivan is running as fast as he can down the hall. Today has been going nowhere near as well as he had hoped, but he could still get some good money out of this. He had been approached by someone to handle a few simple tasks. The first one has already been completed, but the bulk of the money came from the second one. All he needed to do was have his shikigami, disguised with illusions, use some devices near certain competitors. That had been completed after a few days, and the devices were now tucked away in his robes. Once he returned them, the money that he'd get would more than make up for the botched hostage situation!

The light from outside is clearly visible now at the other end of the hall. Ivan picks up his pace – he's almost there!

Then a familiar mage wanders into his path, the look on his face making it clear that he's lost. "Gildarts?!"

Gildarts turns, grinning as he sees Ivan. "Oh, Ivan! There you are! Hey, the night that you left the guild, you owed me a _lot_ of money from that poker game."

All of a sudden, the entire stadium begins to shake, as though an earthquake is occurring. Arcadios narrowly avoids falling over, as he is clearly shocked by this. "What now?"

Back in the hall, Gildarts is radiating with raw magical energy. A smile is still on his face, but his eyes are far less cordial than before. "Why don't you pay that back with interest?" The two of them had never liked each other – Ivan was frustrated by Gildarts being so carefree despite being so strong, while Gildarts found Ivan to be a self-serving coward incapable of following his own father's example.

"You… can't stop me…" Ivan shakily takes a few steps forward, but trying to walk through the magical pressure that Gildarts is putting out is like trying to walk through a tornado. "I'm the leader… of the strongest dark guild… in the continent!" He takes another step, but his legs are shaking so much that he can't move any further. "I will…"

Raven Tail's master can't take any more, foaming at the mouth as he collapses to the ground. Scooping Ivan up, Gildarts tosses the former Fairy Tail mage over his shoulder and wanders off to find the authorities. Maybe handing Ivan over will cover the cost of all of his property damage…

Once the battered and beaten dark mages have been rounded up, Mato returns to the field to update the crowd. "I've just been informed that the criminals have been defeated-kabo!" Mato's happy-go-lucky demeanour turns uncharacteristically sinister, creeping out more than a few of the audience members. "And rest assured that they will be punished to the full extent of the law for what they have done."

Arcadios coughs into the royal box's microphone, and Mato continues. "But that's not what you're here for, is it? Despite that little diversion, the Grand Magic Games must go on!"

The crowd lets out a cheer as the day's one-on-one matches reappear on the screen as a reminder for the voters.

 **Blue Pegasus vs. Fairy Tail One**

 **Sabertooth vs. Mermaid Heel**

 **Alvarez vs. Fairy Tail A**

 **Crime Sorciere vs. Lamia Scale**

As people continue to input their votes, Makarov makes it back to his seat. "Thanks for the heads up, Mest. They might have backed off if the guards were aware that something is up, but since we were ready to act, we caught all of the remnants of Raven Tail." After he had been informed about Carla's visions, Mest quickly managed to find someone suspicious, use his Memory Control magic to make it seem like he had always been working with them, and followed them to Raven Tail's base of operations in an abandoned warehouse.

"Master, there's something else." Mest pulls out some papers. "When I was infiltrating Raven Tail's base, I found this note. They were hired to bring a package into Crocus. I was worried they might be bringing in bombs, but this…"

Makarov snatches the papers from Mest's hands, and his eyes widen in shock as he reads their contents. "This doesn't make sense… My son's motivated by profit, but who would pay this much for dead bodies?"

The answer to that question can be found on the outskirts of Crocus. Deep beneath the ground, a sturdily built man stomps through a dark hallway, his armour clanking with every movement. He makes his way to the center of operations, and the few people present pause when he enters, as if expecting the worst. "Report."

A voluptuous woman with pink hair and opaque glasses glances down at her lacrima communication device. "Raven Tail was defeated, sir. They couldn't deliver the information that we needed, but the other package just arrived."

The armoured man strokes his mustache, which is so large that it merges into his hairline. "We can make this work. Bring those bodies in here immediately – we've got lots of studying to do, and not much time to do it in."

"Yes, sir!" A mountain of a man, one who's twice the size of the others and almost looks stuffed in to his lab coat, salutes before heading off to cart the bodies in.

A frail-looking man with a posture that makes him resemble a toad turns to his boss in confusion. "But sir, are you sure that this will be enough?"

The armoured man gives a small smile. "We're fortunate enough that the bodies were intact. Having more information would always be better, but we have to do our best with what we have. I trust that all of you can accomplish this?"

"Of course." The other two nod, and then go about their business. As the bodies are brought in, the armoured man walks over to the centerpiece of the room – a massive black arm that dwarfs even the largest of the people present.

The armoured man strokes the gargantuan arm, running his fingers along the grooves where the bite marks remain. "Good. These will be the tools for our revenge, so let's make sure not to waste them."

 **The plot thickens! There was some interesting speculation as to who our mystery villain would be, and I hope that the result is worth it! I figure that there was a lot about Ivan that wasn't revealed, like why he left the guild or his rivalry with Gildarts (on his profile, Gildarts's dislike was listed as Ivan, but that never came up again), so I figured I could try to expand on that a bit.**

 **Jose was a late addition to this plot, but I figured that he hadn't been heard from since the Phantom Lord arc, so it couldn't hurt to use him in order to give Ivan's plan a little extra muscle. Plus, it would give me the opportunity to let some major mages who weren't in the Grand Magic Games take part in the action.**

 **These new villains are original characters, but I'm hoping to tie them into the events of the main series. We'll learn more about them later, but for now, don't forget to vote – I'll likely be able to fit two fights into the next chapter, and I want to hear as many opinions on who should compete as I can.**


	11. Ghosts of the Past

**When it came to this round, I had some trouble with writing the Sabertooth vs. Mermaid Heel fight. The two most popular options were Kagura vs. Rogue and Yukino vs. Millianna, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find inspiration for either of those fights. Once I combined aspects from both of them, it seemed to work much better.**

After getting everything back on order, the competitors from Blue Pegasus and Fairy Tail's Team One have entered the field for their fight. Despite Rala's unfamiliarity with the games, he seems to be interested. "This is an inspired choice! Both of these competitors are the manliest mages present, from what I have seen."

"HEY!" Nearly all of the male mages who are participating protest this declaration, along with Elfman before he remembers that he's not competing this year.

"Geeheeheehee! You hear that?" Gajeel is cackling as he watches the reactions of his guildmates, as he's facing off against the person who Rala considers to be the other manliest mage…

…Ichiya. Okay, so Rala may or may not be accurate with that statement. "Meeeeeen~! I was hoping to face Laxus and convince him to return to Blue Pegasus, but I will be able to show him and the Thunder God Tribe how strong our guild has become!"

Gajeel cracks his knuckles, his smirk remaining on his face. "That's a nice speech, but you've gotta beat me to do that."

"It seems as though you aren't taking my resolve seriously. Very well – in that case, a wager seems to be in order. If I win, then Laxus will return to Blue Pegasus. And to show how serious I am, if Fairy Tail wins, then they will get…" Spinning around, Ichiya points at Gajeel with both index fingers as rose petals blow in from nowhere. "…me."

"Ichiya, no!" The members of Blue Pegasus, especially the Trimens and Nichiya, are in shock – many of them are begging him not to do something so drastic.

"Pass." Gajeel doesn't even hesitate to refuse those conditions, causing confusion among the Blue Pegasus members.

"Why would he turn down such a generous offer?" Eve wonders aloud.

Hibiki nods, believing that he's figured it out. "Perhaps he knows that he cannot win, so he does not want to lose one of his precious friends."

Gajeel snarls, shaking his fist at the crowd – his Dragon Slayer hearing is good enough to pick out those conversations. "That ain't it at all! You got _everything_ wrong!"

In the crowd, Erza breathes a sigh of relief – even the thought of Ichiya being in the same guild as her chilled her to the bone.

"Unfortunate, but I understand that you do not want to put a precious comrade at risk. However, I shall go all out nevertheless!" Pulling out two vials of perfume, he stuffs them into his nose, inhaling deeply. In a flash, the Blue Pegasus mage is surrounded by electricity, and he points at Gajeel again. "Justice Thunder Men~!"

Lightning shoots from his fingers at Gajeel, striking him. However, in order to counter this ability, Gajeel turns his arm into a steel pillar and sticks it into the ground, diverting the lightning. It still hurts considerably, but it's much worse than it could have been.

Despite being slightly charred, Gajeel's grin remains on his face. "Using lightning against me? I've fought Laxus, and he hit way harder than that!"

"Still took you out of commission…" Laxus grumbles, though only his team hears him.

"I see. I hate to do this, but it seems as though I must!" With a dramatic flourish, Ichiya pulls out the second most dangerous perfume in his arsenal. The most dangerous, the Handsome Perfume, was banned across Ishgar after it spilled into the water supply of Magnolia Town and caused an epidemic of people transforming into bizarre Ichiya hybrids. As possessing it is now considered a war crime as a result of that outbreak, this is the most powerful perfume that Ichiya can legally use.

"I've seen you use your perfumes – they're nothing spec-" Suddenly, Gajeel's hands are up to his nose in a flash, and it looks like he's going to be sick. In the crowd, all of the other Dragon Slayers, along with a few people in the front rows, are reacting the same way, as their sense of smell is assaulted by something that seems like a mix between burning garbage and a clogged toilet.

"This is the Legendary Perfume of Darkness! None can resist its smell, one so potent that even those without noses dread facing it!" Ichiya's eyes are watering – while his nose may not be as potent as a Dragon Slayer's, he's at ground zero of the stench. "I hate to use such a troublesome technique, for it is truly a double-edged sword, but I have trained myself to resist its effects!"

Gajeel kicks at Ichiya, his leg turning into a lengthy steel pillar to boost its range, but Ichiya sees it coming and dodges. "I don't have to use my arms to beat you!"

"No, but you must use them to defend yourself! Surrender now, and I shall seal this technique away, so that it may never be used again!" Ichiya inhales his Power Perfume, causing his muscles to expand and his body to burst out of his shirt. While such a form may look ridiculous, with Ichiya's face on the body of a body builder, it was strong enough to defeat Bacchus Groh and one of Wahl's mechanical puppets in a single hit each.

Gajeel can't help but feel that this entire situation is absurd – he always found Ichiya weird, and yet now that he's actually fighting the guy, he's being pushed back?

Acting quickly, he coughs out two small cylindrical pieces of metal, about the size and shape of bullets. Removing his hand from his nose, he tries to bear the smell even for a moment, but he gags, doubling over. The only time he's ever felt this bad was when he was on transportation! His hands shaking, he barely gets the chunks of metal into his nostrils before the smell can overwhelm him.

With the foul stench blocked somewhat, Gajeel is able to get back to his feet. "Thanks for babysitting Laxus for a year. 'Cause I'm such a nice guy, I'll go easy on you just for doing that."

"Your body may be iron, but even the strongest of steel bends before this technique! Power Perfume: Max…" As Ichiya charges at Gajeel, he grins.

"Iron Dragon's Roar!" Gajeel breathes out a torrent of metal shards at the leaping Blue Pegasus mage, which quickly engulfs him. Ichiya has no way to defend himself, and when the attack is finished, he is bloody but still standing.

"Good… match…" Ichiya tries to take a few steps forward, but falls to the ground, unconscious. The entire Blue Pegasus guild immediately rushes out to carry him to the medical wing, and Gajeel sits down, wondering how his life got to this point.

In the crowd, Natsu and Wendy are still clutching their noses, as even with Ichiya gone, the stench of that perfume still lingers. "Remind me… to never get Ichiya mad, okay?" Natsu shudders – he can't exactly plug his nose with fire, and while he could use his scarf, he doesn't want that smell to soak into it. The non-Dragon Slayers, who are too preoccupied with keeping their noses plugged, cheer for Gajeel's victory, though it's Gajeel's team, along with Levy and Pantherlily, who are cheering the loudest. With that win, Fairy Tail's Team One moves to first place with a total of thirty-nine points.

Next up is the battle between Sabertooth and Mermaid Heel. Specifically, the fighters chosen were Rogue Cheney and Millianna, arguably the second in commands of their respective teams. Of the two of them, Millianna seems to be especially excited for this fight, stretching and punching the air as Rogue stands there stoically.

The cat girl grins at her opponent. "Hey, shadow guy! How 'bout we do a bet like what the last fighters tried?"

Rogue crosses his arms, annoyed. "Why? There's no reason for it."

"Don't be like that! What about this – if I win, then that kitty of yours has to join Mermaid Heel!"

 _That_ gets Rogue's attention. He points at Millianna dramatically, clearly riled up. "Frosch is a precious friend of mine, and a valued member of Sabertooth! He would never leave the guild, under any circumstances!"

Meanwhile, Frosch had left to get snacks, and he had gotten lost on the way back. Clutching his bag of popcorn, he looks around for the Sabertooth section, and seeing a bunch of mages off to the side, he runs over to them and sits in an empty seat.

"All right, Rogue!" Rogue turns to acknowledge Frosch, but his Exceed friend isn't in the Sabertooth section of the stands. Looking around for the source of the voice, he spots that familiar frog costume in the Mermaid Heel section.

"FROSCH, NO!" Rogue immediately fears the worst, and turns to Millianna with fury in his eyes.

"Kagura, hold on to that cat for me!" Millianna waves to her guildmates. Kagura decides to oblige her teammate, putting a hand on Frosch's head and rubbing behind his ears. "All right! Now I'm all pumped up!" The cat-like mage turns to Rogue, unfurling her whip.

However, when she turns her attention to the Sabertooth mage, she can't even see him – everything around her is covered in darkness. Rogue emerges from the shadows, his eyes wide and his body limp.

"I won't… let you… take Frosch AWAY FROM ME! Shadow Dragon's…" The shadows that Rogue generated converge on Millianna, assaulting her from all angles. "…Waxwing Flash!"

The barrage of attacks continues for a while, as Millianna is pelted by a bunch of feather-like shadows. "And…" Drawing back his hand, shadows wrap around it before Rogue strikes Millianna with his open palm. "Shadow Dragon's Crushing Fang!"

The force of this blow sends Millianna flying into the stands, unconscious. The Mermaid Heel girls immediately rush over to their friend. "Millianna, are you all right?"

Millianna shakily opens her eyes. "Need… kitties…" As the Mermaid Heel mages breathe sighs of relief, Frosch cheers on his friend's victory, spilling some of his popcorn on the floor as a result of his sheer enthusiasm.

Yajima looks at the schedule. "Next up, we have Fairy Tail's A Team versus Alvarez. The mages of Fairy Tail played a major role in fending off the forces of Alvarez during the war, so it will be interesting to see how this goes."

"Yeah! Come on, Fairy Tail!" A young barefoot girl is sitting on one of the chest-high walls, cheering loudly for her favourite team and apparently unconcerned with the possibility of falling off. "Come on, Arius! You've gotta cheer too!"

The dark-haired young man chuckles at his companion's enthusiasm. "I'm actually supporting Crime Sorciere or Alvarez – I find the story of an underdog more interesting. How inspiring would it be to see a team that's never competed before come out on top?"

The blonde girl pouts at that. "You're so indecisive! Can't you just pick one of them?"

"I could ask you the same question, Mio. Let's say both Fairy Tail teams were pitted against each other – which one would you support?"

"Hm…" Mio stops to think about that question. "That's a tough one. Lucy's a huge inspiration, and it's clear that the A team is a very tight-knit group. On the other hand, Team One has a lot of powerhouses, and they certainly seem more determined to win…" She shrugs, making a verbal tactical retreat. "I guess it can be harder than it looks some times. Besides, if you're rooting for an underdog, why not cheer for Blue Pegasus?" Arius immediately drops that subject.

The mages of Fairy Tail know the strength of the Spriggan Twelve better than anyone, and while Lucy and Wendy are dreading the possibility of being put up against anyone, aside from Brandish in Lucy's case, the others are more enthusiastic.

The situation is very similar on the Alvarez side. Aside from Brandish, who couldn't care less, and Neinhart, who is dreading the possibility of one-on-one combat (especially against Natsu or Erza), the rest of them are eager for payback.

Eventually, the votes are finalized. Much to her concern, Lucy was surprisingly popular this round, and for a moment, her heart sinks when she thinks that she might have been chosen to take on one of the Spriggan Twelve. Fortunately for her, it's Gray who was selected instead. The exhibitionist ice mage heads down to the battlefield with the crowd cheering him on, and of course, the Fairy Tail sections, and Juvia in particular, are the most enthusiastic.

For the Alvarez side, the mage chosen to represent their team was Neinhart, much to his shock. His ideal setting for a fight would be a city, where he had a lot of places to hide or stay out of the way of potential opponents – a wide-open battlefield, surrounded on all sides by a crowd of people, is basically the exact opposite of that.

"Hey, are you ready or not?" Gray eyes up Neinhart, confused as to how one of the Spriggan Twelve was eyeing up the surroundings as though he was looking for a way out. He hadn't heard about this one from any of the other Fairy Tail mages, but this kind of behaviour seemed unusual for a mage like this.

"I guess I have no choice…" Neinhart resigns himself to the fact that he'll be stuck in the middle of all of this. Activating his magic, he draws on the biggest source of guilt for the mage standing before him.

As Gray gets ready to fight, he hears a familiar voice behind him. "Let's see how much stronger you've gotten over the years, Gray."

"Ur?" Gray's eyes widen as he turns his head to confirm that this is, in fact, his former master. Recalling something similar happening during the battle with Alvarez, he turns to look at Neinhart. "So you're the one who…" Forming a large icicle into his hand, Gray tosses it at the Alvarez mage. "Ice Make: Javelin!"

"Ice Make: Wall." With little effort, Ur puts a wall of ice between Gray and Neinhart before tapping him on the shoulder. "Surely you don't want me to leave so soon? Your test hasn't even started."

Despite everything that's happening, Gray can't help but smile a little. "Guess I've got to beat you before I can get to him, right? If you wanted to see how much stronger I've become, I suppose I can show you." Instinctively, Gray pulls off his shirt, tossing it into the air. Most of the Fairy Tail mages are more surprised that he kept it on for as long as he did.

"You aren't going to hold back? Good – let's see how creative you've become."

Out of everyone in the crowd, it's Ultear who's paying the closest attention to this battle. While the only member of the Spriggan Twelve that she personally encountered was Dimaria, she had heard that Neinhart's magic made exact copies of deceased mages with strong bonds to his targets, so she wanted to memorize everything that she could see of her mother.

"Ice Make: Rose Garden!" A field of icy flowers blooms on the stadium floor, quickly surrounding Gray. The speed with which Ur cast this was impressive, but the most troublesome thing would be the thorns – even the slightest movement scratches Gray's arms and legs. Still, he has to move in order to cast magic, so ignoring the pain, he places his arms together.

"Ice Make: Scythe!" Rather than spawning the scythe in his hands, it sprouts from his feet, having it lie on the ground. A sweeping kick allows the scythe to shatter the ice roses, leaving them in shards that quickly melt. The scythe also cuts into Ur's right leg – the leg that she lost in life – but she seems more proud than anything.

"Good – interesting method of using that." With that, Ur slaps her hand on the ground. "Ice Make: Ice Volcano!" The ground suddenly erupts with a barrage of ice blocks, snow, and hail, as Gray is sent flying by the attack.

"Ice Make: Hammer!" Gray summons a hammer of ice above Ur's head. Ur leaps out of the way to avoid it, but Gray's goal of getting Ur's ice volcano to stop erupting is accomplished. Landing on the ground, Gray places his hands on it. "Ice Make: Shield Wall!"

A half-sphere of ice forms around Gray, with spikes jutting out of it like spears. Ur smirks, summoning ice of her own to attack it. Ur's ice projectiles have so much magical power put into them that they smash through the wall after a few blows, but even from the distance she's at, one thing is absolutely clear.

"It's empty?!" Ur barely has time to notice the ground warping beneath her before Gray bursts out from it, carrying a drill made of ice. She leaps back, avoiding a direct hit, but Gray tosses the drill at her, catching her in the stomach.

"You're taking more hits than the last time this happened. This is going to be a pain…" Even though he's being forced to fight his beloved mentor, a small smile is still on Gray's face – this is just like old times, and the closest he'll get to showing Ur how he's improved.

Ur smiles as well. "I wish I could see how much Lyon's improved as well, but I suppose I can only take on one of you at once in a case like this." With that, Ur lunges forward, creating an ice axe in her hand. "I've seen your power – now let's test your speed!"

"Ice Make: Gungnir!" A massive spear of ice rises from the ground, right in Ur's path with no time for her to create a footing and escape. The ice spear impales Ur's Historia, leaving her suspended high in the air.

From Ur's new vantage point, she manages to spot a face in the crowd that seems inexplicably familiar. Reaching her hand out, she tries to memorize the face of her daughter, and tears form in Ultear's eyes as her mother notices her.

As Ur fades away, along with Gray's massive ice spear and the ice wall that Ur created, Gray turns to Neinhart. "All right, now it's just you and me."

"Not exactly…" Gray leaps away as he hears another voice beside him – the voice of his father, Silver Fullbuster. "The power that I gave to you… Let's see how well you can use it, son."

"You too? Between you, Ur, and Ultear, this is like a messed up family reunion. Let me guess, you won't let me go after that coward until I beat you."

Silver nods. "I'm afraid so. Much like with Tartaros, I don't have any say in the matter – his magic is the only thing tying me to this world."

"Ain't that a shame…" This was hardly ideal – Gray had already taken a few good hits from Ur, and now he had to face his father as well. With his father deliberately positioning himself between Gray and Neinhart, he didn't seem to have a choice in the matter. Taking similar stances, both father and son inhale deeply, preparing their attacks.

"Ice Devil's Rage!" Both of them exhale a purple blizzard, with blasts of snow and hail clashing against each other before violently exploding. Before the smoke clears, Gray summons a purple ice bow.

"Ice Devil's Zeroth Destruction Bow!" While the attack name is a bit of a mouthful, it's dangerous enough to cause serious harm to Mard Geer, of all people. He fires it through the smoke, but Silver snatches the arrow out of midair. It freezes his arm solid, but he seems unbothered by that fact.

Silver tries to take a bit out of the ice, but he recoils once his mouth makes contact. "Yuck! This tastes disgusting!"

"Don't think you have the option of being picky, old man!" Gray smirks, making note of that fact in case one of Silver's attacks hits him.

"I don't recall raising you to be so disrespectful! Guess I'd better teach you some manners." Biting off the last of the ice, Silver creates spiked gloves on his hands, made from the same purple ice as the rest of the Devil Slayer magic. Gray tenses up, preparing to dodge, but Silver vanishes. The Fairy Tail mage's eyes widen as he looks around, only for Silver's fist to hit him in the side from behind him.

Gray turns to strike back, but Silver has disappeared again, making good use of his teleportation magic. His next blow is a sweeping kick to knock Gray down, followed by a crushing gut punch. Gray coughs up blood as he collapses to the ground.

"Just surrender, son. This violence is unnecessary." Silver looks down at his boy with a sad expression on his face – as much as he hates doing this, he can't resist the compulsion.

"Heh. Why should I? I've got you right where I want you!" Summoning a spear into his hand, Gray tosses it in Neinhart's direction. Neinhart had thought that, with Silver here to protect him, he wasn't going to be threatened, so the attention suddenly returning to him catches the Alvarez mage by surprise. Silver's eyes widen in shock, and he teleports in the way of the spear to grab it out of the air and eat it.

Now that there's some distance between himself and Silver, Gray can get back on his feet. A bit of blood is dripping down his chin, and his wounds from Ur and his father are starting to catch up to him, but he's not about to quit any time soon. "Why don't we make up for lost time? I'm thinking that we try a game of catch!" Running his hand along the ground, Gray forms a sphere of ice in his hand and tosses it at his father. "Ice Make: Ball!"

Silver inhales, preparing to eat it, but he gets a mouthful of dirt along with the ice. Coughing and trying to get the dirt out, he's wide open for Gray's next attack.

"And… Ice Demon's Hell Thorns!" Purple spikes impale Silver's body from a dozen different angles, and it's too injured for him to keep fighting.

"Heh… Would you look at that." Silver smiles as he looks at Gray with pride. "You've really gotten the hang of my magic – I can only imagine how much stronger you'll get." With that, he fades away, leaving Gray alone with Neinhart once more.

Summoning mages of this calibre at their full power was starting to take its toll on Neinhart – while he could summon an army of Historias, sacrifices had to be made to maintain their strength, such as severely decreasing their durability. Summoning a whole army, or even a few powerful mages like the dead Spriggan Twelve members, would result in each of them going down in a single hit when they could normally take much more damage. When he only has to worry about one opponent, and the opponent is close by, his powers could be used more effectively, but it also takes much more out of him if the summons are particularly strong.

Even though he's panting and sweating, Neinhart still grins as Gray advances on him. "I see… there is one more powerful Historia, at least."

Gray glares at Neinhart, readying an ice sword. "Ur and my father were some of the most powerful people that I've ever seen, at least of the ones who aren't with us anymore. I doubt that any of the mages that you can pull out of my head could beat them."

"Oh, but this Historia already _has_." Suddenly, a massive shadow looms over Gray and the audience as Neinhart's third Historia is summoned. Neinhart is doubled over and can't move, but this summon should be worth it.

"Where am I?" The behemoth turns its head lazily, looking around. "So many humans…" It looks in front of him, where Gray is staring at the beast, absolutely furious. "Perhaps I'll start with you… A small morsel for the feast to come…"

In the crowd, Lyon's eyes have widened with shock, and he's tempted to step in there himself, regardless of the rules. "It can't be… De-Deliora?!"

The massive demon that is standing before them is, in fact, Deliora – the demon of Zeref that was responsible for the destruction of Gray's hometown and the death of his mentor, Ur. Acting quickly, Freed throws up a barrier around the audience, with Levy reinforcing it. The two of them had been contacted to do such a thing in case of emergencies – while the competitors knew that attacking the audience would result in disqualification, a situation like this could easily result in a lot of collateral damage, especially if Neinhart couldn't control Deliora. Other mages with similar abilities were also assisting to increase the barrier's strength, just to be on the safe side.

Gray also immediately decides on a course of action – Ice Make spells likely wouldn't work, especially in the state that he's in, but Devil Slayer magic wouldn't be much good if it wasn't super effective against demons. "Ice Devil's…"

Before Gray can finish his spell, Deliora's massive hand swipes at him, which sends the Fairy Tail mage flying into the stadium's wall. Despite Deliora's massive size, it's clear that it possesses great speed as well.

Even with Gray smashed into a wall, it's clear that Deliora isn't done. Inhaling, the demon fires a beam of energy at the part of the wall that Gray was embedded into – only the barrier keeps about a seventh of the crowd from being hit along with him.

Leaping out of the smoke, Gray flings a purple ice sword at Deliora's face. It hits the demon square in the eye, causing it to bellow out in pain. "This… What is this magic?"

Gray lands on the ground, nearly falling as he does so – the wounds that he's taken from Ur and Silver were bad enough, but he won't be able to last much longer if the hulking demon lands another blow. "I may not have Ur's strength, or her convictions, but I have something that she didn't." As Deliora looms over him, ready to strike again, Gray places his hands on the ground.

"What are you babbling about? Die, morsel!" Deliora swings a massive hand at Gray, but it's already too late – purple-tinged ice is already forming out of the ground beneath Deliora's feet.

"Ice Devil's Mountain: Sisyphus!" The ice rises upwards, becoming a miniature mountain that pierces through Deliora. Spikes of ice expand outward from the mountain, slicing the massive demon in half.

As the ice vanishes and the two halves of Deliora slide apart and fall to the ground, Gray steps through them. He's barely standing at this point, after the gauntlet that he's ran, but he's gradually making his way towards Neinhart. "Is that… all you've got?"

"Eek!" Neinhart tries to find another powerful Historia from Gray's memories, but he's running out of options. Summoning the same Historia twice in quick succession leads to them being significantly weaker, so he can't reuse Ur or Silver, and while Mard Geer might be a possibility, Gray already demonstrated that defeating a demon of Zeref was much easier compared to fighting a human mage. Neinhart tries to back away, to get as much distance as possible between himself and the ice mage, but he stumbles and falls, leading to him scrambling away in an undignified manner.

Gray's footsteps get shakier the further he gets, and his vision starts to blur. Try as he might, he can't keep himself upright any longer, and when he's a few steps away from Neinhart, he collapses.

Neinhart's eyes are wide and his heart is pounding, but he is as surprised as everyone else at this outcome. Looking around to make sure this isn't some kind of trick, he turns and bows to the crowd, considering this to be a successful demonstration of his abilities.

As the points are added to the board, narrowly bringing Alvarez to second place, the Alvarez citizens in the crowd let out loud cheers. For the first time since the preliminaries, they have something to be excited about. While they're seven points behind Fairy Tail's other team, and they'll be bumped down to third no matter who wins the next match, it finally feels like they have a chance of winning this.

As Neinhart continues to celebrate, Juvia rushes off to the medical area. It doesn't take long for her to get there, and when she does, Gray is sitting up on his bed, slumped over and lost in thought.

"G-Gray-sama?" Juvia hates seeing Gray like this – it reminds her of their first day at the Grand Magic Games, and their previous fight with one of the Spriggan Twelve. "Are you okay?"

Gray sighs, trying to collect himself – both for his own sake and Juvia's. "It's fine. It's just a contest, after all; we're not at war anymore."

Juvia shakes her head. "It's not that. It's just… I know seeing your father must be difficult after what happened to him, and everything else on top of that…"

Gray shakes his head – he had been hoping that this wouldn't come up, but it's something that he'll have to deal with. "I know my father and Ur would both be proud of me for what I've accomplished, and I beat Deliora. I'm not sure if it was as strong as the original, but that's a huge step forward, and a way to avenge them both. Besides, I should probably stop focusing on what I've lost. I've still got you, after all, and it's my future that I should be concerned with."

Juvia takes a moment to process this, running it through her usual filters.

 _I've got you, after all, and it's my future that I should be concerned with._

 _I've got you, Juvia – you're my future._

 _Let's spend the rest of our futures together._

"Gray-sama!" She gives Gray a big hug, which he doesn't try to brush off, even when she nuzzles against him. "But where will we go for our honeymoon?"

"W-Wait, hold on! I never said anything about marriage!" Gray tries to clear things up, but Juvia refuses to let go of him, and his protests only seem to dig him in deeper.

Back in the arena, Mato is preparing to announce the final battle for the day. "This next match is going to be a good one! On one side, we have Lamia Scale – veterans of the tournament and a well-rounded team all around! On the other side, we have Crime Sorciere. While they're newcomers to the Grand Magic Games, they've taken the competition by storm! They've rocketed to the top of the scoreboard, and many consider them favourites to win the entire games!"

Once the votes are tallied, Mato's eyes widen when he sees the results – he has serious doubts that the stadium will stay intact after this battle. Still, the people have spoken, and all he can do is say the results. "Your final match for the day will be… JURA NEEKIS VERSUS JELLAL FERNANDEZ!"

"DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUN!"

"Rala, stop that."

 **I figured the first two matches would be short, so I might as well set them all up now. I hope I haven't annoyed any Gray fans with his performance in the Games so far, but Neinhart's a tough opponent for someone like him, who's dealt with a lot of absurdly strong people/demons in his past, and having Neinhart bring up past traumas was a popular concept among people who voted. Plus, it seemed like a good opportunity for a shipping moment, and to balance the scores out a bit.**

 **Thanks to Martyn for suggesting the cameo for Mavis and Zeref's reincarnations! Next time, we have Jellal vs. Jura – and this time around, Ultear and Meredy won't be interrupting it.**


	12. Moving Heaven and Earth

**Our twelfth chapter brings us to the end of the third day. With the Grand Magic Games roughly halfway done, who are you rooting for? (Okay, so a lot of us will be biased towards one of the Fairy Tail teams, but it's still something to think about)**

 **Even though I wanted to make this a light-hearted and breezy chapter, it wound up being the longest one that I've written so far! I don't know how or why that happened – I guess I just enjoy writing about the characters in Fairy Tail.**

After the announcement of the final match for the day, it isn't long before Jura and Jellal are in the arena, staring each other down.

"It seems you are a man of many names… Mystogan, Sieglein… I've even heard of a man from a distant land named Sieg Hart who bears many similarities to you." Jura closes his eyes, focusing. "It matters little. You were qualified to be one of the Ten Wizard Saints, and our brief skirmish two years ago demonstrated that your strength was legitimate. With that in mind, I will not hold back."

Jellal raises an eyebrow – this is the first he's heard of this 'Sieg Hart' person. "Only one of those was actually me, but I am honoured to have your respect." His gaze hardens, and he glances around to confirm that the barriers from the last fight are still in place. "With our previous bout in mind, I suppose I should go all out from the start. I am aware that my lesser attacks would simply waste my energy."

From the stands, Ultear yells at Jellal, furious that he apparently learned nothing from last time. "Quit showing off just because Erza's here!" Jellal ignores her, and there isn't much that Ultear or Meredy can do now that they're actually competing, so Ultear sits back down, pouting as she does so. Even interfering with their own team would count as interference, so all they can do is watch and hope that Jellal's holding back enough to leave the stadium standing.

"True Heavenly Body Magic…" Above them, the clouds begin to darken and swirl as a circular hole opens up in the sky above them. Jura quickly prepares a spell of his own to counter, as a meteor the size of the arena begins to plummet from the sky. "Sema!"

Jura does not stay idle as the meteor falls towards him. Drawing a circle in the sand, he shouts "Kangchenjunga!" Massive hands, built out of rock, rise out of the ground surrounding the stadium. They clap together, catching the meteor between them.

The meteor forces the hands back a bit, but its progress is effectively stopped. The hands keep the meteor suspended in midair, pushing together – slowly but surely, the space rock is being crushed into powder, but for now, the meteor and the hands grabbing it are little more than an elaborate decoration towering over the stadium.

For a moment, Jellal stares slack-jawed at what is happening, but he shakes it off, using his Meteor magic to surround himself with light and dash towards Jura. "Big Dipper Fist!" Jellal's hands are effectively a blur, as he assaults Jura with a series of punches. These attacks leave a glowing symbol of the Big Dipper constellation on Jura's chest. The Lamia Scale mage can't even react before the glowing circles shine and detonate, sending him flying into the walls of the arena.

Jellal barely has time to catch his breath before Jura walks out of the smoke, bruised but clapping earnestly. "An excellent blow! That would have caught anyone off-guard, I believe."

The blue haired mage gives a small smile to his opponent, though he feels a little nervous after seeing how quickly Jura recovered from what he intended to be a finishing move. "You're as tough as a mountain, aren't you?"

"Far tougher. My defeat against Serena caused me to… re-evaluate my training methods. Now, then…" Jura holds a hand out, palm-first, at Jellal. "…I believe it is my turn."

Jellal wasn't going to sit back and let Jura get a hit in. "Jiu Leixing!" He conjures nine swords made of lightning, which fly towards Jura. However, before they can come in contact with him, pillars of stone rise from the ground in the path of the swords. The lightning blades hit these pillars, flowing through them harmlessly towards the ground.

"Nanga Parbat!" The pillars roll up on themselves, turning into boulders that are flung at Jellal. Jellal leaps over the rocks, rotating his hands in circles in front of him.

"Heaven's Command Charge!" Bringing his hands together, Jellal thrusts them forward, launching a brilliant beam of energy at Jura. Jura tries to leap out of the way, but the beam catches him on the leg, causing him to stumble.

Jura climbs to his feet, surprised at how well Jellal's been keeping up. "You are very fortunate. There are not many that I have been forced to use this power against, and now, your talent will result in these spectators being given an outstanding show." Jura barely even moves or changes his stance, but the increase in magical pressure is sudden and intense. It's hard to say how it stacks up to Gildarts, Eileen, or August, but even Laxus could admit that he might have had some trouble if Jura had used this attack against him.

Jellal takes to the air, hoping that by staying off the ground, he can avoid the worst of Jura's attack. This new vantage point allows him to get a better view of the arena floor, which causes him to turn pale. "What…"

The entire arena floor, once mostly consisting of uniformly spread sand, has now shifted to resemble Jura's face, only consisting of rock and sand. The mimicry opens its mouth as Jura states the name of his attack. "Olympus Mons!"

With that, energy from deep within the earth begins to erupt from the face's mouth. Jellal swerves to dodge it, but the beams also shoot from the face's eyes, hitting him in the arm. Energy begins to launch out of the ground indiscriminately, until eventually, the entire stadium floor is blasting energy into the sky. The rumbling is almost deafening to the spectators, and when the energy fades, the arena's floor has turned pitch-black, as though the sand itself was damaged somehow by the force of the blow.

Jellal floats in the air for a few moments, his robe in tatters, before he falls to the ground. The crowd, especially the Lamia Scale area, celebrates, but the look on Jura's face remains serious.

Jura's instincts were correct, as Jellal slowly climbs back to his feet. The crowd is shocked, and the commentators have long since given up on trying to describe what they have been seeing. Only Yajima can get a few words out. "It seems as though both of them are on their last legs…"

After the two of them take a moment to catch their breath, Jellal enters a stance that nobody, not even his own guildmates, recognizes. "I haven't had a chance to try this spell out yet, but I found it in an ancient tome. It seemed potent, so we will see if this is enough."

"Is that so?" Jura strokes his beard. "Then I shall use my ultimate technique as well."

Lyon stares, wide-eyed, at Jura's declaration. "You mean… he was holding back?!"

In response, Baba smacks him with a fan. "Of course! There's no way Jura could be pressured by another mage, right?"

Jellal glows with a blinding light. "Very well. Witness the power from the Book of Belserion."

A magic circle covered in arcane symbols forms around him, as a bright light appears in the sky above. Meanwhile, Jura clasps his hands together as if in prayer. Magic energy builds up within both mages, shaking the very earth around them.

"Polaris!" At Jellal's command, the star-like light turns into a beam that hurtles towards the ground, matching if not surpassing Etherion in sheer power. The beam pierces through the meteor and Jura's stone hands that are still grabbing it, obliterating both of them. The dust from these once-massive structures follows the beam to the ground.

"Everest!" With a stomp, the earth around Jura transforms into a mountain, rising up to meet the beam. The mountain expands, quickly covering the arena and leaving Jellal with little room between the rushing wall of rock and the stadium's walls.

Before Jellal is smashed into the side of the stadium, his beam proves to be more powerful. It pierces through the mountain, hitting Jura right in the center of his construct. For a moment, the mountain stops expanding, but seconds later it collapses, showering the arena in shards of rock. In the center of the mountain, Jura is lying there, burnt and unmoving, but still breathing.

With Jura unconscious, the scoreboards update to reflect the final standings for the third day.

 **Crime Sorciere: 39**

 **Fairy Tail One: 39**

 **Alvarez: 32**

 **Sabertooth: 31**

 **Fairy Tail A: 28**

 **Lamia Scale: 23**

 **Mermaid Heel: 18**

 **Blue Pegasus: 10**

The excitement is palpable among the mages. For most of the teams that are competing, it would only take one good day for the tables to turn completely. Even for Mermaid Heel, the team currently in second-to-last place, it would only take doing well in an event and winning a battle to rocket them up to second or third.

After Mato gives his closing statement for the day and the spectators start to leave, Jellal makes his way over to Erza. He's limping a little from his injuries, and could probably use medical attention, but he figures that this takes priority.

Erza gives Jellal a smile as he walks over, glad to see that he's doing as well as he can be, considering who he was just up against. "Well, it looks like your information was right – Raven Tail _was_ planning on attacking the stadium."

Jellal nods. "Have you heard anything else? To pull off something like that, Raven Tail must have been unusually confident, considering that some of the mages here could defeat every single one of them without trying."

"You think they had more allies?" Jellal nods, so Erza continues. "I'll have Mest look into it. Seeing as he can alter the memories of others, it should be easy enough for him to find out."

"Thank you." Jellal turns to leave, but Erza won't let him go without asking something.

"By the way, that Polaris spell… why didn't you use it on me? I _thought_ you weren't going to hold back during our fight – I figure only my Adamantine Armour would have been able to withstand an attack like that, and even then, it seems questionable."

Jellal blushes, but tries to explain. "I'm still not used to aiming that attack, and it takes a lot of my magical power to use. Jura seemed like the sort to stand there and take that attack, since he's proud of his defense, but if you dodged it, I'd be helpless."

"Hm…" Erza shrugs, considering that explanation to be acceptable. "I suppose that makes sense." She considers saying that Jellal owes her for not being entirely truthful, and that a date would make up for it, but even thinking about saying something like that leaves her a blushing, stuttering mess. "I'd better go – my team's waiting."

"All right – bye." Both of them are blushing heavily, leaving much unsaid but relieved that they can openly have a conversation without fear of Jellal being arrested or attacked by someone looking for vengeance.

Later that night, the members of Fairy Tail have dispersed across Crocus, each with their own plans for the evening. Sting convinced Natsu that they should hang out, but the pink haired Dragon Slayer didn't expect that another mage and Exceed combo would be joining them.

"The two Ichiyas?!" Natsu and Happy are slack-jawed – when Sting said that they'd have another guest right before they entered the room, they both expected Rogue and Frosch.

Sting laughs at the looks on their faces. "Yep! I heard about what he did to stop Acnologia, and I thought that we should hang out with someone who's that manly and learn about his secrets!"

Ichiya nods. "Nichiya, my dear friend, enjoys life at Blue Pegasus, but it has been quite some time since he has spent time with other Exceeds. When I heard Sting's offer, I immediately accepted!"

Tears stream down Nichiya's face as he goes in for a hug. "You're so considerate!"

"Oh, right! You rammed that ship of yours into Acnologia? Erza told me all about that!" If Erza knew that Natsu had mentioned that to Ichiya of all people, she would be cursing his name, but Natsu just sits down at the table. "So what made you do it?"

Ichiya clears his throat, clearly having a speech prepared for this very question. "When a hero sees someone in danger and goes to say them, he or she often says afterwards that their body moved without thinking! I may not be a hero, but it is the same for me! I cannot sit by and leave a woman, especially my honey, in danger, no matter what the threat is!" Ichiya turns, pointing at Sting. "And what about you, Sting? Is there anyone who you care for so much that you would do that for without thinking?"

"Um…" Sting scratches his chin, somewhat embarrassed to talk about it. "Well, there's Yukino… I wanna make up for how I acted back when she was kicked out of the guild. Maybe take her out for dinner some time? I know she likes pasta, so I figure that might make up for it."

"An excellent choice! No expense should be too much – you are your guild's master, after all! What about you, Natsu? Is there a lady in your life?" Ichiya and Nichiya turn to point at Natsu, acting completely in sync as Ichiya asks his question.

Natsu doesn't even hesitate. "Yeah, of course! There's Lucy, Lisanna, Erza, Wendy, Juvia…"

"W-What?!" Ichiya and Nichiya are shocked by Natsu's sudden and immediate declaration. "T-That's indecent!"

Sting shakes his head, immediately figuring out how Natsu interpreted the question. "No, Natsu – what Ichiya meant was, is there anyone who you love?"

Natsu shrugs – now he's just confused and annoyed. "I dunno. How would I know that kinda thing?"

Sting pauses, trying to come up with a description that Natsu would understand. "Your heart starts pounding, you feel really nervous when you're around them…"

Ichiya and Nichiya pose dramatically as the former throws in his two cents. "You find that you can't go a day without thinking of them…"

Even Happy chimes in, offering some advice. "You find the one person who you want to share your fish with!"

Natsu pauses, mentally sorting through all of this new information. "Hm… Nope! Can't think of anybody like that."

"BAHAHAHAHAHA! Did he seriously do that?" Across Crocus, Cana laughs hysterically as Lucy fills her in on what happened before her team left for the Hundred Year Quest. The two of them are out shopping, but Cana doesn't even mind the weird stares that she gets as she continues to laugh hysterically. Lucy clearly doesn't find it amusing; her face is bright red and she's pouting.

"It's not funny! I thought it all seemed so romantic, and then he just grabbed me and ran off!" Lucy stomps her foot, frustrated. "I don't know what goes through his head sometimes!"

"It probably doesn't help, but even _I_ could've told you something like that would happen. Natsu isn't exactly in tune with his emotional side." Cana grins as she spots something that might cheer Lucy up. "Close your eyes for a second, 'kay? I've got a surprise that'll make your day!"

Lucy groans as a part of her is dreading what's going to happen next. "Fine… Just don't make me stand here too long, all right?" True to her word, Lucy does stand there with her eyes closed, but it isn't long before Lucy feels pressure on her chest. "Cana, stop~~! Not in public!"

"Huh? Stop what?" Lucy opens her eyes at Cana's response to see the brunette looking through a rack of clothes, hunting for a particular blouse that she thought Lucy would like. Looking down, she sees what she felt on her chest – bright red hair, which is slowly wrapping its way around her body.

"EEK!" Lucy turns her head to find the source of her hair, Flare, standing behind her. Flare gives Lucy a big smile, clearly finding nothing odd about this scenario.

"It sounded like you weren't being appreciated, so I thought a hug might cheer you up!" Now that her job is done, at least in her mind, Flare's hair retracts to its normal length.

Lucy sighs, relieved that it's not something worse. "Thanks," she says in an honest tone of voice. "I saw you helped to stop Raven Tail – that was great!"

"Really?" Flare blushes, not being used to receiving compliments. "Thanks, Blondie. You've been doing great so far too!"

As the two mages catch up and Cana works her way over to join them, Brandish walks out of the store, clad in her usual bikini and furry coat ensemble in spite of the summer heat. She looks a little annoyed as she leaves empty-handed. "I can't believe the fashion in Ishgar is so conservative…"

"Oh, hey, Brandish!" Lucy waves the green haired mage over. Brandish may find talking to people annoying, but she can make an exception for Lucy, so she heads over to join the trio of mages.

"And who's this?" Flare tilts her head, staring at the newcomer. While she has been watching the Grand Magic Games, her focus has been directed almost entirely on Lucy, and she doesn't have any interest in either of the newcomer teams.

"She's a friend of mine from Alvarez. She shrunk my house, but we're okay now." Lucy turns from Flare to Brandish. "So how do you like Crocus?"

Brandish looks around before responding. "It's all right, but it seems way too big." Noticing the look on Lucy's face, she clarifies. "I'm not going to shrink the city; I just can't find my way around it."

Cana wraps her arm around Lucy's shoulder. "Well, you're in luck! Lucy here spent a lot of time in Crocus when she worked with Weekly Sorcerer Magazine! She'll be a huge help!" Lucy tries to downplay that comment, but Brandish still considers the offer.

"Not tonight. I've got to head back in a few minutes to guard Invel's room, in case anybody tries to plant a trap there for him or something. I had the Neinhart Squad take over for me, and Invel would give me this long lecture if he found out that I left. Would tomorrow work?"

Lucy grins at her unusual group of friends. "That sounds great! We'll make it a girl's night out!"

Cana digs through her pockets, pulling out two identical keys. "Here's a key to Lucy's apartment! If you're ever in Magnolia, feel free to stop by!"

Lucy shrieks at that as Flare and Brandish take the keys – neither one really needs a key to get into Lucy's apartment, but they appreciate the offer. "Cana, don't just hand those out to everybody! And where did you get those?"

Cana grins. "Mirajane gave one to me, and I got some extras for situations like this!"

"Miraaaaaaaaa~~!" Lucy shakes her fist at the sky, cursing the day that she decided to give Mirajane a key to her apartment in case of emergencies.

In another part of Crocus, Mira sneezes. "Uh oh – hope I'm not catching a cold…"

"You'd better not – you're the one who insisted that we come back here." Erza looks around warily. "I hope we're still welcome. After what happened last time…"

Mirajane giggles at how serious Erza's being. "That was only because of Natsu and Gray, and neither of them is here. We should be fine!"

Erza sighs, taking one last look around before following Mirajane in. "If you say so…" With that, two of Fairy Tail's S-class mages enter Ryuuzetsu Land, Fiore's premiere summer vacation spot. After Fairy Tail's last visit, they had managed to rebuild it quite quickly.

Given their particular types of magic, it takes a few moments for them to change to their swimsuits and enter the pool area. Like always, it's crowded and chaotic, though this time, there shouldn't be a risk of the entire place freezing and/or exploding.

"Er-chan! Hey!" Erza hears a familiar voice calling out, and it's not long before she spots Millianna in the pool with the rest of the Mermaid Heel team. The cat mage climbs out of the pool to greet Erza before practically dragging the redhead in. Mirajane smiles as her friend is dragged to the middle of the pool, and she sits on the edge of the pool and uses this time to relax.

Erza smiles as well, glad to see that her childhood friend is as eager and energetic as always. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

Millianna nods enthusiastically. "Yeah! We were gonna play volleyball, and having you here makes the teams even!"

Kagura gestures to the net, which they've already set up – for the purposes of this game, they went with one of the smaller pools. "When we saw you come in, the rest of my group decided that we should be on separate teams. I suppose the last time we tried volleyball played a big role in that."

Erza nods, remembering her last visit to the Mermaid Heel guild. They had been on a mission to help Mermaid Heel when most of their members came down with an illness, not realizing until it was too late that it was an attempt at capturing the members of the guild and forcing them into slavery. A volleyball game turned into a warzone when both Erza and Kagura wagered their own membership on the outcome, and took it as seriously as they took everything else. The end result was the destruction of the surroundings and the ball, as well as bruises on their teammates.

As the teams of three spread out, and Millianna prepares to serve the ball to Kagura's side, another group of mages chooses this moment to make their entrance. As soon as Erza spots a familiar head of blue hair, she snatches the ball out of Millianna's hands so she doesn't pop it by accident.

Crime Sorciere enters Ryuuzetsu Land, with their attire ranging wildly from Angel's skimpy feather-themed bikini to Hoteye's old-fashioned swimsuit that covered most of his body. In addition to the guild's regular members, both the competitors in the Grand Magic Games and those who are sitting it out, there's another mage with them – a blocky-headed man who is talking excitedly to Hoteye about what he's seen over the years.

"Wally?!" Both Erza and Millianna yell out in surprise, and Millianna gets out of the water to run over and give him a hug, completely ignoring Jellal and Ultear as she passes by them.

Jellal is wearing ordinary swim trunks, though Erza is relieved that he no longer finds it necessary to keep Mystogan's mask on his face at the pool. He turns from Millianna to follow where she came from with his eyes, and at the sight of Erza in a bikini, his face turns beet red and he tries to keep blood from dripping out of his nose. Ultear waves a hand in front of Jellal's face before sighing and walking over to the pool with Meredy.

Beth looks over to Millianna, but she's clearly not going to come back to the pool any time soon, as Wally is introducing her to his brother. Upon finding out this bit of information, the cat-like mage gives Hoteye a big hug. "I think I'll sit this one out, if ya'll don't mind."

With that, the volleyball game is down to Risely and Erza against Kagura and Arana. Risely serves first, but Kagura immediately moves to block it, swatting it over the net with tremendous force. Risely's eyes bulge as the ball comes hurtling towards her like one of Jellal's meteors, but Erza swims in front of her, sending the ball back at a blistering speed.

The two of them continue to send the ball back and forth, and their teammates can only stare wide-eyed at the rally going on before them. As this continues, they get more into it, letting out battle cries with each hit and treating it as though it is a life-or-death duel. Eventually, the angle that Erza hits the ball on is slightly off, and the ball is sent flying into the air, higher and higher until it is out of sight.

"Do you think they have any extra balls?" Kagura turns to look at the stand renting out sporting equipment, which is immediately closed by the employees when they see what had just happened. With the game clearly done, Risely and Arana take the net down as Jellal gets into the water.

"Erza," Jellal says, blushing and averting his gaze, but grabbing on to her arm. "I thought about what you said earlier, and you're right. I should have used every spell that I had in our fight earlier, even if I thought that you'd be able to dodge it. Let's go somewhere private… so we can train, of course." The look on his face made it clear that training wasn't exactly his intention.

"W-Wait!" Leaping over, Kagura latches on to Erza's free arm, pulling in the other direction. " _We_ should get some training in before tomorrow – every bit of practice helps, after all! Besides, it would be much more useful to improve your sword skills." Kagura's blushing as well, but she clearly doesn't want Erza and Jellal to be alone together.

Erza turns to her guildmate, hoping that the model can distract one of her assailants. "Mira, can you help me out here?" However, Mirajane is long gone, having wandered off to get some drinks and watch Erza's situation play out. "MIRAAAAAA!" Erza yells out futilely, as she continues to be the center of a tug of war between Jellal and Kagura.

Unsurprisingly, Juvia was dragging Gray along to see a new play in town, _Hermia and Lysander_. Somewhat surprisingly, Gray has no problem with going to it. Seeing as Gray had decided on where the two of them went for their last date, it was Juvia's turn, and seeing a play in Crocus was an opportunity that didn't come along very often.

The two step inside the theater, narrowly avoiding a volleyball that fell out of the sky with enough force to smash the pavement, and take their seats. To Gray's annoyance, they wound up sitting beside Lyon and Jura, though mercifully, Lyon doesn't try to hit on Juvia.

"Ah, Gray-san! Do you enjoy historical plays as well?" Despite his loss, and the bandages covering his body, Jura is in high spirits – it's clear that he enjoys the theater.

Gray shrugs at Jura's question before smirking at his white-haired rival. "I didn't think you'd like this sort of thing, Lyon."

Lyon shrugs, trying to look collected. "Chelia wanted to come when she heard it was a play about love, but Jura only had two tickets, and there were so many people she wanted to bring." Her list was surprisingly long – there was Sherry, Ren, Wendy, Carla, Happy… "I came along instead, to keep Jura company." He tries to tuck a notepad that he brought into the pocket of his jacket – it's clear that he's more interested in the play than he's letting on.

One section of the theater is surprisingly empty, even though the seats are the best in the house, but after a few minutes, it becomes clear as to why that's the case. Invel, Neinhart, Ajeel, and a host of Alvarez soldiers file into the seats, with Invel and the two Spriggan members in the center. From her own seat, Juvia gives Invel a big wave. He doesn't return it, but he chuckles a little.

Gray looks at Juvia, a little surprised by her action. "I didn't expect that. After everything he did to us…"

Juvia looks at Gray, her eyes practically sparkling. "He got us closer together – that's what's important."

Gray gives her a small smile, holding her tighter. "You've got a point."

"WOOOO!" Bacchus yells from the back, clearly drunk like he almost always is. "LET'S GET THIS STARTED!" His fellow members of Quatro Cerberus howl in reply.

"And here I thought it was going to be a quiet night…" Gray moans. Juvia giggles, nuzzling against him as the lights dim and the play starts.

Using their status as former members of the Magic Council's Enforcement Unit, it was easy for Gajeel and Levy to join a tour of the royal palace, something that was usually reserved for nobility. Levy was ecstatic, as everything from the floor to the ceiling was packed with a rich history, but Gajeel was bored out of his mind. The tour guide kept droning on and on, he was surrounded by high quality metal but not allowed to eat any of it, and none of the other people on the tour look like they want to start a fight!

As the tour group passes through the royal gardens, Gajeel grabs Levy's arm and pulls her around the corner. Levy glares at him for that, whispering harshly. "Gajeel! They were just getting to the good part!"

Gajeel grins, one hand gripping her arm and the other pressed on the wall behind her. "Relax – you're so small that they won't even notice you're gone!" Levy punches at Gajeel's chest ineffectually and tries to leave, so Gajeel leans in to whisper to her. "Besides, sneaking around the royal gardens would be pretty exciting, wouldn't it?"

Levy blushes as she realizes what Gajeel's getting at. "Gajeel… But, in public? What if someone sees?"

"It's a big castle – it's so easy to overlook something." Gajeel and Levy lean closer together, their lips practically touching…

"I can't believe it! Is everyone from Ishgar so indecent?" The two of them glance over to see Jacob glaring at them, clearly offended by such a public display of affection.

"YOU RUINED THE MOMENT!" Turning his arm into a blade, Gajeel launches it at the Alvarez mage. He vanishes, dodging it once he's out of sight, and the blade keeps going until it decapitates a statue of Toma E. Fiore's father.

Immediately, alarm bells go off, and guards rush towards the garden to find out the cause of this ruckus. Grabbing Levy, Gajeel throws her over his shoulder and runs away.

Levy had been eying potential escape routes in case something like this happened – she figured it wouldn't be long before Gajeel started gnawing on some ceremonial armour or taking a bite out of a legendary weapon that the royal family had owned for generations. "Right!"

Gajeel takes a sharp turn to the right, leaping over the garden's fence and off the castle grounds. The two of them roll down a hill, eventually coming to a stop at the bottom along a river bank. Gajeel lands flat on his back, and Levy lands on top of him. The two rest there for a moment, listening to the gurgling of the river and the distant whine of the sirens, before Levy pulls her head up.

"You know, we _could_ continue with what you were talking about…" Levy giggles, tracing a finger along Gajeel's chest.

"That's more like it!" Grinning, Gajeel grabs Levy's arms. However, another voice interrupts them.

"Hey, keep it down over there! You're scaring away the fish!" Gildarts is seated along the river, fishing rod in hand as he tries to catch the legendary Crocus Sturgeon.

"Come on!" Gajeel's getting annoyed, while Levy can't help but laugh at how absurd their night has been.

Elsewhere, Wendy, Carla, and Chelia were out sight-seeing – since Lyon and Jura would be a few hours at a play, Chelia figured that she had earned some time to relax, and decided to drag Wendy along with her.

As the three of them go from vendor to vendor, trying out the various treats from around the world that are on display during this time of year, they spot a familiar woman chatting with one of the vendors, a mage that they aren't exactly happy to see.

"I'll be right back," Dimaria says to the vendor before turning to greet the young mages. "Hello, girls. Have you gotten lost? Want me to escort you back to mommy and daddy?"

Wendy glares at the time mage. "Don't try anything funny. You don't want your team to be disqualified, do you?"

Dimaria giggles. "Oh, I wouldn't dare harm a hair on your heads. _But_ , we aren't in the Games anymore, so I can stop time whenever I want." Clicking her teeth, Dimaria seems to vanish, appearing behind Chelia with her hands on the pink-haired mage's shoulders. "You've grown quite a bit, haven't you? If I wanted to, I could shred that shirt of yours and you'd be none the wiser. I'd just _love_ to see the look on your face after that."

"I think that's enough." Dimaria turns around to see Orga looming over her. "So you use God Soul, right? I've never gotten a chance to actually slay a god, but I'd love to try it."

Wendy turns to face Dimaria. "I might not be a god slayer, but I did pretty good against Eileen, so I'll do what I can to help!"

Dimaria reaches out, but only to ruffle Wendy's hair. "Relax, kid. Since Invel's trying to make nice with your country, I've got no reason to hurt you. Now, humiliating either of you? In front of a worldwide audience, no less? _That_ sounds like fun."

The time mage can sense that the mood is still tense, so she chuckles, waving as she walks away. Chelia turns to Orga, smiling at the Sabertooth mage. "Thanks for the help!"

Orga grins. "Us God Slayers have got to look out for each other! See you around, kid!" With that, Orga heads off, leaving Chelia and the Fairy Tail mages to continue exploring the city.

While the mages and other citizens of Fiore are celebrating, another group in Crocus is much grimmer. The group that had been allied with Raven Tail is hard at work, experimenting on the massive arm and the two corpses that Ivan's guild had gotten for them.

"Persephone, get out here!" The mustached man yells out over the din. A blonde woman, her hair done up in spikey pigtails, peeks out from a back room before running out to her boss.

"Yeah, boss?" The toad-like man leaps up, slapping her on the back of the head.

"Speak properly! You will call him Lord Hephaestus, or you won't be working here!"

Hephaetus glares as his two allies bicker. "I appreciate the sentiment, Hermes, but such formalities are unnecessary. I just wanted to know how your assignment is going."

Persephone grins. "Oh, it's going great! Surprisingly, the big lug actually listens!" The young girl gives a sharp whistle, and a hulking beast stumbles out from the door that Persephone just came from. The creature resembles a human in silhouette, but that's where the similarities end. Its skin resembles oil or slime more than flesh, almost dripping down its body. Claws stick out slightly from beneath that slimy exterior, revealing three fingered hands and feet. As for its face, it looks like a bare human skull, its mouth slightly ajar.

"Good. It looks like our research has paid off. Even if it's not as fruitful as our current operation, Project Prometheus should serve us well when it comes to getting our revenge." Hephaestus glances at the gargantuan arm, smirking. "Raven Tail was so desperate to get just _one_ of our products that they were willing to steal from the spectators of the Grand Magic Games to afford it, and that was _after_ we gave them a discount for their services. It may take some time to make it…" He turns to the pink-haired woman, who's examining the monitors. "How long, exactly?"

The woman doesn't even turn her head, focusing intently on the screens to make sure nothing goes wrong. "Twenty-four more hours, give or take a few minutes."

"Good. In a day or so, we'll be able to get our revenge, and every Dark Guild will be crawling out of the woodwork to get their hands on our product. Even some of the legal guilds would, I'd imagine – there's no doubt that they wouldn't want to be left behind."

Persephone is beaming. "So are we going to be showing it off on the last day of the Grand Magic Games?" She pulls out a ragged picture, gazing at it adoringly. "I can't wait! Maybe that eyepatch-wearing hunk from Fairy Tail will be there!"

"Yes… All eyes will be on the Grand Magic Games on its last day. With the competition being broadcast around the world, it's the perfect opportunity." Hephaestus's smirk becomes a grin, as he gestures towards the bodies that are being experimented on – the corpses of God Serena and Eileen Belserion. "Who would have thought that the war between Ishgar and Alvarez would have proven to be so useful?"

 **As a reminder, the next matches will be the three-on-three fights, so start thinking of trios that you'd like to see in action! I'm not sure how difficult it will be to juggle six characters in one fight, but the two versus two matches were well-received, so I feel confident in being able to pull that off.**

 **No previews of the upcoming match-ups yet, but one of them has already been foreshadowed in the story – it's one that I felt was a real missed opportunity when it came to the Grand Magic Games in the series itself. Also, you can rule out any match-ups that have already happened, so there's not going to be either of Fairy Tail's teams vs. Alvarez, for example. Beyond that, what match-ups do you think might happen? Which ones do you want to see?**


	13. Foursome

**We've reached unlucky chapter thirteen – hard to believe that we've made it this far!**

 **I'm glad to see people picked up on the references that I made last chapter, between My Hero Academia, Rave Master (though that one was a bit obvious, I'll admit), and the Fairy Tail spin-offs. I've also thrown in references to Fist of the North Star (one of Jellal's attacks in the last chapter shares the same name as an attack used by Kenshiro and Raoh) and One Piece (probably more subtle than it needed to be, but I intended Gildarts's defeat of Ivan to come across like Shanks using Conqueror's Haki).**

 **The next event was also inspired, in part, by My Hero Academia's Provisional Hero License Exam arc – I binge-read that series in two days, and that arc gave me a way to make my original plan more interesting.**

As the crowds begin to file in to the stadium, the worldwide broadcast of the Grand Magic Games starts. The lacrima vision cameras focus on the commentators' booth as the three of them begin their introductions.

"Welcome, one and all, to the fourth day of the Grand Magic Games! I'm your commentator, Chapati Lola, and I'm joined as always by Yajima!"

Yajima takes this as his cue to speak. "We have a very special guest commentator today – I convinced my good friend Makarov Dreyar, member of the Ten Wizard Saints and master of the Fairy Tail guild, to join us."

Makarov nods. "Despite my position, I will remain impartial with my commentary." Everybody who knows him immediately sees through that lie, but Yajima's just glad to spend time with his friend after having so many close calls lately. "We've had an interesting couple of days – new teams coming out of nowhere to qualify for the Games, a rare quadruple knock-out, and a battle between two Wizard Saints. I'm looking forward to seeing what today will bring!" Notably, he left out yesterday's attack; he'd rather not discuss his son unless he absolutely has to.

Chapati nods, and the cameras focus on each team in turn as they arrive at their place in the stands. "We've had countless mages in many different combinations take part in these games, but I have to say, this might be our strongest line-up yet!" There's some heckling from the Quatro Cerberus guild, but Chapati continues, undaunted. "Even this late into the tournament, there's no clear winner. While previous years have shown us that the outcome can change wildly even at the last minute, it's still a shock to see the competition so close! Who do you think will take the Games this year?"

Yajima gives the question some thought. "It is difficult to say. Of course, Fairy Tail is a force to be reckoned with, no matter which team we're talking about, but Alvarez and Crime Sorciere have many unknowns, and the other four teams are well-rounded with more than raw power on their side. We could see a repeat of two years ago with Fairy Tail winning, or maybe Sabertooth could use that defeat to motivate themselves to victory and take the title back. Maybe one of the other teams could give themselves the push needed to take the trophy for the first time. Even now, it seems too close to call."

By contrast, Makarov doesn't hesitate. "Fairy Tail has the best chance here. Even if its members are split up between two teams, the guild won the Grand Magic Games for a reason, and just one of the team members defeated last year's winner as well!"

Yajima nods. "Ah, yes. No offense to Scarmiglione, of course, but I'm glad to see that our competitors have drastically improved this year."

Chapati is looking at the other two, a bit nervous. "I thought you were going to be impartial..." Unlike his fellow commentators, he isn't a mage, so he's the only one in actual danger if the members of Scarmiglione get upset. Any further discussion is cut short, as Mato walks out into the arena to make his announcement.

"As a reminder, today's matches are three versus three! As we saw a few days ago, the two versus two matches were particularly hectic, so adding even _more_ mages into there is bound to result in quite a show~!"

Mato points to the screens, and the eyes of the spectators are drawn to them, watching for the matches to appear.

 **Lamia Scale vs. Sabertooth**

 **Crime Sorciere vs. Alvarez**

 **Blue Pegasus vs. Mermaid Heel**

 **Fairy Tail A vs. Fairy Tail One**

The excitement is practically visible among the crowd as they turn to each other, discussing the newly announced match-ups. "That's right, folks! We've got some great matches lined up for today! First, there's Lamia Scale vs. Sabertooth – both teams are not only incredibly strong but exceptionally diverse, and doing well today could easily get either one them to the top of the scoreboards! Then we have Alvarez and Crime Sorciere – the two newcomers to the competition, but they've easily become teams to keep a close eye on! Then there's Mermaid Heel and Blue Pegasus, who arguably have the most to gain from this fight! A win could put them in a great position for a comeback, while a loss could ruin their chances for good!"

"And finally, we have the two Fairy Tail teams battling it out! You all know how powerful the mages of Fairy Tail are, but can they bring out that same strength when battling each other?!" Clearly, Mato had never been to the Fairy Tail guild, seeing as most of the members of the A team (Wendy being the only exception) have fought a member of Team One before.

Carla breathes a sigh of relief. She had been worried that the vision of Fairy Tail mages fighting each other was a result of mind control, human puppetry, or some similar magic, but it was just due to the tournament. She couldn't make out the faces at the time, given how fast parts of the vision appeared and vanished, but the Fairy Tail symbols had been clearly visible.

"And now, I'd like to call down our competitors for today's competition!" Mato draws the audience's attention to a hill in the middle of the arena, with flags for each team's representative to stand beside.

"It's my turn." Erza immediately leaps down to the arena, not even waiting for her teammates to step forward. "I'll guide our team to victory, or die trying!"

"…It's just a game – don't go that far." While Natsu, Gray, and Wendy cheer Erza on, Lucy takes that kind of claim literally when it comes from Erza.

"I'm going – don't try to stop me." Kagura immediately moves to take part, and her teammates nod in response.

"I'm pretty sure you're the only one of us who could match Er-chan anyway." While Millianna would want to show Erza how much stronger she's gotten, she's well aware that she'd be well out of her league if Erza was taking this seriously.

Before her teammates can even consider joining in, Minerva teleports into the arena, looking at the other two competitors as they cross to the center. "My, my… how nostalgic."

"Geeheeheehee! Better look out, Titania, because those swords of yours will make for a great victory feast!" Gajeel heads toward the stairs, but Mirajane is standing in his way, smiling in a way that Gajeel finds subtly ominous.

"Let me go down there, and I'll tell you everything I've ever heard about Levy's ideal date night!" Mirajane is beaming, but there's something about that smile that Gajeel doesn't trust – she never said what would happen if he _didn't_ let her go…

"Dammit… Fine, you can go," Gajeel grumbles, feeling like he doesn't really have a choice in the matter.

"Yay! Thanks, Gajeel!" As Mirajane prances down the stairs and into the arena, Gajeel shakes his fist at her.

"You'd better tell me the truth about that when this is over!" Mirajane just waves back to him as she heads towards the center.

Jenny's eyes gleam as she heads for the stairs. She had been waiting for Mirajane to compete in order to take part in one of these events – last time the two of them had faced off at the Grand Magic Games, Jenny had been put through what she viewed as the ultimate humiliation. Even if she enjoyed the photoshoot itself, having pictures of it spread throughout Fiore was particularly embarrassing. Now it was time for payback!

In the Alvarez section, Dimaria licks her lips. "This is just perfect… Every single one of them is a looker, and they seem pretty strong as well!" She rushes down the stairs, images running through her mind of getting a definitive victory over that demon woman, or making that samurai girl squeal with embarrassment again.

Meredy turns to Angel, unsure about which one of them should take part. "Do you want to go down there, Sorano?"

Angel shrugs, trying to look uninterested. "No, I'm not really in the mood for this." Internally, she's terrified at the thought of facing off against so many freakishly strong women, but on the outside, she seems cool and composed.

Meredy smiles nervously as she heads for the arena. "All right, I guess it's my turn."

Over at Lamia Scale's seats, Chelia stands up, preparing herself. "I'll do you all proud! Now it's time for-"

"Going down there! Bye!" Lyon makes an ice slide that stretches from his seat to the arena, jumping on it before Chelia can finish her sentence. Pouting, the Sky Goddess Slayer sits back down in her seat.

"Ohoho!" Makarov seems interested now, steam shooting out of his nose. "Looks like we've got an exciting match-up today! I'm well aware of what Erza and Mirajane are capable of, but I can't wait to see what these other young ladies – and Lyon – can do!"

"Calm down, Mabo," Yajima sighs – his old friend hasn't changed much with age. "Keep in mind your condition."

Once the mages have all arrived in the center, the ground shakes. "What's going on? Another attack?" Makarov looks around for any sign of trouble. However, his question is soon answered, as the hill begins to rise out of the ground.

Mato grins as the hill floats higher and higher, revealing it to be a massive sphere made out of rock. "Ladies and gentlemen, with the help of some especially skilled earth and gravity mages, I give you the City Planet!" True to its name, roughly designed buildings begin to sprout from the sphere, and the sphere itself comes to a stop floating in midair well above the stadium.

The mages had grabbed on to the flags for stability, and before they can let go, the flags vanish in flashes of light, scattering randomly throughout the planetoid. When each mage lets go, three orbs break off from the top of the flags and float down, orbiting around the competitors.

"The rules are simple. Each mage has three targets surrounding them." On cue, the targets glow blue – clearly, hiding wouldn't be an effective option. "Hitting a target will transfer it to the person who hit it, and running out of targets means that you're eliminated! The goal is to either be the last mage standing, or to have the most targets by the end of half an hour."

Chapati turns to his fellow commentators, unsure about something. "Why go to the trouble of having the targets transfer over? It seems simpler to just have them deactivate or something."

Makarov shakes his head. "It's to encourage the competitors to stay on the offense. If the targets simply stopped working once they were hit, people would try to avoid conflict and find a good hiding spot until time runs out, since attacking would risk you getting hit as well. This way, attacking others gives you more chances to stay in the game."

Meanwhile, the competitors have spread out, searching for their opponents, with the entire thing being displayed to the stadium below on a variety of screens showing various angles of the planetoid. The first mages to meet are Lyon and Meredy, who were teleported fairly close to each other.

Blushing and sweating furiously, Lyon pulls out his notepad from his jacket and starts to read off of it. "Dearest Meredy, for long, I have gazed upon you from afar, but I can stand in silence no longer! I-"

That's as far as he gets into his monologue, hastily copied from the play that he attended last night, before Meredy throws a sword that hits one of his targets. The orb glows red, making a buzzing noise as it floats over to Meredy. "What are you talking about?"

Lyon tosses his notepad away, and his jacket follows soon after. "I-I was wondering if you wanted to… maybe… get some f-food some time?"

Meredy stands there, confused, but after taking a few moments to process what he's asking, a blush creeps its way on to her face. "W-Wait, are you… asking me out?"

Lyon nods frantically, relieved that he got his point across. "Y-Yes. I realize this isn't the best time for it, but-"

Two more swords hit Lyon's targets. As he looks around in confusion and starts to fade, Meredy smiles at him. "We can talk about it later. Right now, I'm going to focus on winning, okay?"

"Her smile… So-" With that, Lyon vanishes, reappearing in the Lamia Scale seats. As Ooba makes him spin around as punishment for what just happened, Meredy looks around at the orbs floating around her.

"Looks like I've already got a good start! Now I just need to stay out of harm's way for a while and…"

Minerva leaps out of a portal and gestures at Meredy. An explosion hits one of her targets, transferring it to Minerva. Meredy launches an energy sword at the Sabertooth mage in retaliation, but she leaps through another portal, disappearing before it can hit.

"Now's not the time to let your guard down – attacks could come from anywhere." Dimaria is standing on the roof of a nearby building, looking down on Meredy with an almost hungry expression. "Unlike the tiger lady, I'm not sneaking up on you because I _know_ I can beat you."

"You sound confi-" Once again, Meredy is interrupted, as one of Dimaria's arms has become shrouded in the energy of her God Soul transformation. Two beams are fired from her fingertips, hitting two of Meredy's targets and bringing the pink-haired woman down to three.

Dimaria looks at her fingers before her hand reverts to normal. "Just as I thought – that's not as satisfying." Drawing her sword, she smirks at Meredy. "I guess up close and personal is the way to go."

Dimaria dashes forward, but Meredy blocks such a straightforward attack with her energy blade. The pink haired woman summons another energy blade which launches at Dimaria. The time mage leaps back, but not quickly enough, as the sword strikes one of her targets and transfers it over to Meredy.

Growling, Dimaria lunges forward again. This time, Meredy moves to block, but the other woman seems to be much faster than before. In a flash, Dimaria dashes by her, hitting three of Meredy's targets as she passes by.

"Looks like I'm getting sloppy. Got any last words before I end this?" Dimaria smiles as she sees the shocked look on Meredy's face. Meredy tries to speak, but Dimaria partially transforms into her God Soul form and fires a beam, hitting the last target before she gets the chance to say a word.

As Mirajane is working her way through the city, she hears a loud clanging noise. Wanting to save as much of her magic as possible, she ducks into an alleyway, failing to notice that it's already occupied.

"Oh, this is just perfect…" Hearing a voice behind her, Mirajane leaps back out of the alleyway, turning to face her opponent. Jenny walks out of the alley, her hips swaying in an exaggerated fashion. "I haven't gotten a chance to demonstrate my upgrades yet, and you seem like the best person for me to test it out on."

Mira's expression softens, and she seems to be lost in thought. "Wouldn't that be the sort of thing that you'd test _before_ going into a fight instead of during it?"

Rather than answering, Jenny activates her magic. "Machina Soul: Machias Doll!" It was no surprise that Jenny had one of these – with the wreckage of several of them scattered throughout Magnolia, it seemed likely that she'd get her hands on one in the aftermath of the war. "Now I can use your weakness!" The machine rapidly transforms, shifting as it analyzes Mirajane.

The end result looks like a giant bobble-head version of Elfman, with Jenny's face sticking out of the mouth. The speakers repeat the phrase "Big Sis! Big Sis!" as Jenny runs as Mirajane, flailing her arms in an attempt to stay upright despite the massive head.

"Noooo! Stop it!" Somehow, Mirajane can only defend against this assault, holding up her hands to protect herself as Jenny tries futilely to hit her despite this new unusually-proportioned body. This entire exchange, shown on the lacrima vision monitors, draws some guffaws from the crowd, and even Evergreen can't help but giggle a bit. Meanwhile, Elfman slumps over in his seat, concerned that his manly image from his fight with Bacchus will be tarnished by this.

It only takes a few seconds of this for Jenny to deactivate this form in frustration. "This is ridiculous! There's no way I'm going to be taken seriously if I beat you like that!"

With Jenny back to normal, Mirajane activates her Satan Soul and prepares to retaliate. However, Jenny activates another one of her Machina Souls. This one is much sleeker, with jet black metallic arms, a back-mounted cannon, and a chrome mask that runs under her jaw and up past her ears.

"Machina Soul: Wahl Icht!" Jenny was especially proud of this form – when cleaning up Hargeon, Hibiki had found the smashed up pieces of some machine and brought them to her to see if they'd be of any use. The abilities it granted her were numerous, but she planned to use one in particular.

Mirajane's eyes widened – Laxus had mentioned that he fought a Spriggan Twelve member by that name, and she had briefly fought one of his drones. "Jenny, you can control that?"

Jenny nods. "Any powerful attacks in this form drain pretty much all of my magical energy, but my only goal today is beating you. Beyond that, I'm not too concerned." The Blue Pegasus mage holds up her hand, and energy begins to gather in the palm.

Now that she's aware of Jenny's new capabilities, Mirajane is acting more defensive to be on the safe side. "That seems a little short-sighted, doesn't it?"

"If I wanted to beat you, I wouldn't have much magic left anyway, so that's about what I'm capable of." An idea comes to mind, and she closes her eyes, picturing the scenario in her head. "However, if you agree to do a nude photoshoot for Weekly Sorcerer and hand over one of your targets, I'll let you go. If you don't, you'll be hit with this – a portable version of Etherion, packing all of the power of the original. It seems like a good deal, and it's only…"

Jenny feels an elbow in her side. She opens her eyes only to find that she's sitting in the stands beside Hibiki. Looking up at the screen in shock, she sees Mirajane waving at a camera before heading off – clearly, Mira had hit Jenny's targets while her guard was down. Jenny deactivates her magic, screaming in frustration.

Back on the sphere, Dimaria's encountered another mage, waiting until their guard is down before she makes her move. Thinking she's spotted an opening, Dimaria leaps out of a hole in one of the buildings, but Erza Scarlet is not one who's easily caught off-guard. The Fairy Tail mage summons a sword between Dimaria and her target, causing Dimaria's own sword to be harmlessly deflected.

Looking back over her shoulder, Erza glares at her new opponent. "So, you're the one who Wendy and Chelia fought? I've heard you could take on entire armies by yourself, so you should make for an interesting challenge."

In contrast to the redhead's seriousness, Dimaria's confident smirk remains on her face. "And you're one of Fairy Tail's elites, right? Beating you should improve my reputation." Dimaria lunges forward, accelerating at an inhuman pace. Erza narrowly dodges, but Dimaria still manages to scrape her sword against one Erza's targets. Erza is baffled – she had paid close attention to Dimaria's previous fights, but the blonde woman had never moved that quickly before!

Erza throws a sword at Dimaria, but again, she accelerates, ducking under it before going back on the offensive. The Spriggan stabs at Erza, but the Fairy Tail mage blocks it. Dimaria decides this is the perfect moment to eye up Erza, and she whistles. "It's a shame I can't use my time stopping magic; I'd love to see how you'd react to _that_."

Erza glares – she's heard all about how Dimaria uses her magic from Kagura and Wendy. "Using your magic to bring shame to maidens is disgraceful!"

Dimaria rolls her eyes. "Would you prefer it if I did that to guys instead? That doesn't sound appealing, but I don't think you'd be complaining if I cut that Jellal person out of his clothes…"

Erza blushes and her eyes widen as that image appears in her head. "Wait, that doesn't…" Dimaria takes advantage of Erza's distraction, hitting one of her targets. That snaps Erza out of her daydream, and she hurries to get out of Dimaria's range.

Dimaria giggles at Erza's reaction before readying her sword. "And to think, you're supposed to be the one who defeated three Historias at once. Neinhart seemed almost scared of you, but I guess he just overestimated his own abilities."

As Dimaria moves in for the finishing blow, another sword blocks hers. Standing between Erza and Dimaria is Kagura, who had leaped down from a nearby rooftop when she saw that Erza was in trouble.

"I will be your opponent. My humiliation will not go unavenged!" Kagura keeps her sword sheathed as she swings it. Dimaria ducks under it, but it manages to hit one of the targets floating around her. Clearly, there was a downside to having a bunch of targets – it makes it much easier for someone else to hit one.

Erza walks over to a wall to rest, keep a close eye on her surroundings in case Dimaria tries to attack her, or someone else shows up unexpectedly.

Dimaria ducks under the blow, her speed increasing once more, but Kagura uses her gravity magic to force her downwards at an even faster pace. The end result is that Dimaria smashes into the ground. "I think I've figured it out now. I watched your fight with Erza; you're using your time magic to speed yourself up. You may not be allowed to stop time, but you can accelerate your own."

Dimaria gets back on her feet, slashing her sword at Kagura. "Age Scratch!" Kagura blocks the blade with her own, kicking out to hit a target near Dimaria's foot.

"It must be a new ability; you use it in short bursts, probably because you aren't used to reacting at that kind of speed." Kagura leaps into the air, landing on two of Dimaria's targets before jumping away. "Still, it is dangerous, so I will have to eliminate you here."

Dimaria felt annoyed that her new power had been seen through so quickly, not to mention explained so thoroughly that now everyone would know about it. With a shout of rage, Dimaria transforms to her God Soul form with the intent of ending this quickly. "Thou art deluded, if thou think that I am limited to such tricks. This shall end here, for both you and your ally!"

Kagura dashes towards Dimaria, whirling around her and swinging at her targets at high speeds. With a single target left, hovering near Dimaria's back, Dimaria's fingers begin to glow with energy. Kagura can't hit the last remaining target, and she's too close to dodge that many blasts, especially at the speed that they move at.

Dimaria's final target is hit by a sword, causing her to turn her head and see who is responsible. Erza, who had otherwise been forgotten about over the course of the battle, is back on her feet, her arm outstretched as Dimaria's target floats over to her. Dimaria turns to counter, but already, she is beginning to fade away.

Once Dimaria vanishes, Kagura turns to Erza. "Hit two of my targets. No more than that, or else I will not hesitate to eliminate you here and now. We will settle what was left undecided the last time we competed here, and it would be unfair if you only needed to be hit twice to be removed from the competition." The Mermaid Heel mage is clearly putting honour before reason here, but if Erza had been in her place, she would have done the same thing.

Erza summons two swords, launching them at Kagura's targets. Kagura doesn't even flinch as they're hit, crouching down and clutching the hilt of her sword. The two women glare at each other before dashing forward, their swords clashing as they stay locked in place.

A portal appears between them, but Erza and Kagura anticipate what's coming and leap away from it. Minerva steps out of the portal, her four targets floating around her. "Why don't we make this a threesome?"

The three women tense up as they prepare to re-enact their fight from the previous Grand Magic Games. However, a sinister laugh echoes through the streets which causes them all to pause. "I don't know – threesomes can lead to one person feeling left out at times, and we wouldn't want that." Another woman walks out from behind a wall, her tail swaying as she prepares to fight. "I think I'll join in and make it a foursome."

"Thank goodness this isn't actually taking place in Crocus," Makarov grumbles a little too close to his microphone as Mirajane joins the fight, already in her Satan Soul form. The original trio was destructive enough, but throwing Mirajane into the mix, especially against Erza, would easily result in a whole city being annihilated.

Erza smirks as her guildmate draws closer to the fight. "I'm glad you're here to help."

Mirajane giggles at Erza's comment, clearly amused at what she sees as Erza's naivety. "Help? Oh my, no. While it's fun to work alongside you, I'm going to take this opportunity to give you a preview of how the Penalty Game is going to go."

Kagura raises an eyebrow at that remark. "Penalty Game?"

Mirajane nods. "The Master brought it up last time we competed. Whichever team did better would have to make one member of the losing team do whatever they wanted for the full day. I got Erza, and we had _so_ much fun!" Erza grumbles in protest, but she doesn't raise her voice; she'd rather not risk prompting Mirajane to go into detail about what that 'fun' involved.

"Whatever…" Sting mutters, picturing Natsu promoting Sabertooth and describing how great of a guild it is.

"We…" Rogue mumbles as he pictures Gajeel hanging out with him, and Pantherlily teaching Frosch how to transform like he does.

"Want…" Orga imagines sending Laxus to run whatever errands he wanted, with the S-class mage being unable to retort in any way.

"Interesting…" Yukino thinks about Lucy teaching her how to use Stellar Dresses – unknown to Yukino, Lucy would probably do it if she asked, but Yukino is too nervous to do that without something like this as an excuse.

"WE WANT IN!" The yell of the Sabertooth group can be heard from the sphere, and Minerva tries to act composed, even though she's clearly as eager as the rest of her team as she thinks of what she would do if she got to boss around Erza for a day.

"Well, even if I didn't want to take part, I suppose I'm outvoted. I cannot let my guild down, after all."

Meanwhile, Kagura closes her eyes, weighing her options. "I cannot force the rest of my team into such a deal, but if it will motivate all of you to fight as hard as you can, then I too will take part."

"Great!" Mirajane claps her hands, though the look on her face remains sinister. "Don't try to back out once this is all over! Otherwise, your punishment will be _much_ worse."

The four women stare each other down, looking for any kind of opening to take advantage of. A piece of rubble is blown off of one of the roofs, colliding with the ground, and each of them takes it as their cue to strike. Erza and Mirajane immediately go after Kagura, as she has the most targets, while Minerva targets Erza, who she views as the biggest threat. Erza changes into her leopard-themed Flight Armour, which gives her enough speed to narrowly avoid Minerva's attack. Lunging forward, she hits one of Kagura's targets, bringing the redhead back to three in total.

Mirajane tries to strike one of Erza's targets, but Erza shifts enough to move it out of the way, resulting in Mirajane kicking Erza in the stomach instead. The kick launches Erza away from the melee and through a building, winding her for a few moments. Minerva wastes no time in taking advantage of this, teleporting away from Mirajane and Kagura and into the building that Erza vanished into. Minerva keeps an eye out for Erza, but a slight noise, indicating that Erza's outfit has changed, directs her attention upward.

Above her, Erza has shifted into her piercing armour and is plummeting towards the Sabertooth mage, lance at the ready. Calmly, Minerva creates a portal over her head, and when Erza passes through it, she appears a few feet to the right, smashing through the ground. With her momentum and the unique properties of her armour, she punches a hole about halfway through the sphere before she stops, leaping back up to find Minerva gone.

Outside, Kagura and Mirajane are evenly matched – whenever one of them hits a target, the other lands a counter attack. An explosion hitting one of Mirajane's targets indicates that Minerva has re-entered the battle, with Erza close behind her. As Erza stabs a spear at one of Minerva's targets, the dark haired woman vanishes, causing Erza to strike the air.

As Erza looks around for Minerva, Kagura kicks at her, hitting one of the redhead's targets. Mirajane goes in to attack Erza as well, but grabbing Kagura's arm, Erza throws the Mermaid Heel mage at Mirajane, causing her fellow Fairy Tail mage to hit Kagura instead.

Minerva laughs to herself, thinking about this 'Penalty Game' that the white-haired Fairy Tail mage had talked about earlier. She had originally intended to have Erza serve her, but thinking it about it, having the other two wait on her hand and foot as well wouldn't be that bad. She begins muttering her chant, so she doesn't draw the attention of the others towards her. "Niel Wielg Mion… Terse Elcantaeus…"

A bright light surrounds Minerva as massive amounts of magical energy shoot into the air. The others try to get away, but it's too late. "YAGDO RIGORA!" One of the Yakuma Eighteen War Gods appears behind her as the entire area erupts with a pillar of light, levelling the buildings in the vicinity.

When the smoke fades, Erza, Mirajane, and Kagura are still standing, but lightly damaged. After their previous fight, Minerva had expected as much from Erza and Kagura, but hurting them wasn't her goal. Most of their targets were caught in the explosion, and they float towards Minerva in waves, leaving Erza with one and the other two with two. Meanwhile, the targets are floating around Minerva's body and practically covering it, acting almost like a barrier.

"This is the power of Sabertooth." Minerva holds up her hand, her face lit up by a confident smirk. "I can end this now, if you like, or you can take one another out to see who will be saved for last."

Erza glances at Kagura, who nods back. Both of them realize that it's about time that they do what should have been done when they originally fought Minerva. Erza looks over at Mirajane, who understands what they're planning. Erza turns her gaze to Minerva, her resolve as strong as ever. "The mages of Fairy Tail will never surrender!"

"Very well, Erza. I was hoping to save you for last, but if you're volunteering…"

"Now, Mira!" Charging up a beam of energy between her hands, Mirajane fires it at Minerva, who redirects it upwards with a wave of her hand and a use of her spatial magic. However, she didn't expect to see Erza and Kagura, running at full speed behind the beam.

"Wha-" Minerva doesn't have time to finish that thought, as Erza switches to her Flight Armour, Kagura grips her sword, and both women dash by Minerva, hitting her targets along the way. With no targets remaining, Minerva vanishes; both swordswomen breathe a sigh of relief before beams hit four targets on each of their backs, causing them to float off.

Mirajane, having switched to her Satan Soul: Halphas form, can't help but smile as she sees the look of shock on her allies' faces. "Well, Minerva's been eliminated, so now anything goes, right?" With that, Mirajane changes forms again, to the Alegria form that she gained from absorbing the soul of Tartaros's base. Through training over the past year, she had managed to decrease the amount of strain that her transformations put on her magic power, but with only five minutes or so remaining, she wants to finish this quickly.

Similar thoughts seem to go through the minds of the others, as Erza shifts into her Armadura Fairy armour. While this armour once destroyed a floating island about the size of their current arena, Erza figures that this amount of power is necessary considering who she's up against. She dashes at Mirajane, swinging at any targets that she can reach, but Mira deflects the swords with her tendrils or claws to keep them from hitting their mark.

Kagura unsheathes her sword, swinging it at the other two without any ceremony. Noticing in time, they leap over the blade, and the slash continues unhindered, passing through part of the sphere and slashing it off, leaving a flat surface instead of a rounded one. The slashed off piece, like a sliced tomato, drifts towards the ground, but none of the competitors continue to mind as they keep on the offensive. While Kagura's energy slash is only good for one shot, recharging once her sword is sheathed, she keeps it drawn to signal that she's taking this seriously.

For several minutes, spectators and commentators alike can only stare wide-eyed at the screen and the planetoid itself, as it becomes increasingly deformed by Kagura's gravity magic, Mirajane's energy beams, and Erza's raw force. Buildings are knocked over, massive craters are formed on the sphere itself, and many wonder if it will even stay intact. The fighters are all evenly matched – whenever one of them gets a target, it creates an opening for another one to take a target from them. Nobody can gain an advantage, and none of them can let up for even a moment.

As Erza and Kagura's blades clash once more, Mirajane dashes towards them with the tendrils extending out of her body in order to strike. While the two sword fighters leap apart at the last moment, Mirajane still manages to hit a few of their targets. This leaves each competitor with eight targets apiece.

As the action pauses for a moment while the fighters catch their breath, a gong rings out, signalling that the time limit is up. They're tempted to keep going regardless, but it's clear that all three women are nearing their limit.

The sphere lowers to the ground and sinks through it as the buildings disappear, leaving the remaining fighters standing in the arena. All three of them are slumped over and gasping for air, but they're still keeping their eyes locked on each other, Mato clears his throat, drawing the attention of the mages and the spectators. "Normally, we'd have some sort of tie breaker round here, seeing as all three of them had the same number of targets on them by the end, but it's clear that all of them are too exhausted to try a bonus game, so we'll declare this round a tie! All three of these competitors fought admirably, and they will be awarded with the average of what they would have earned, meaning that both Fairy Tail teams and Mermaid Heel will get eight points!"

With the fight finished, Mirajane is back to being all smiles and sunshine as the three women support each other out of the arena, gripping the shoulders of the others to keep themselves stable. "Too bad it got cut short. Still, maybe we could finish our threesome some other time!"

Erza's face turns red as it finally dawns on her where else she's heard that phrase before – while her novel collection uses fancier terms for the concept, that particular wording has come up once or twice in her reading. "Please don't call it that." Kagura looks between the two Fairy Tail mages, confused about what Erza finds so embarrassing.

As Erza, Kagura, and Mirajane hobble off to the medical section to heal up, and Wendy and Chelia head down to help speed up the process, the current scores are updated.

 **Fairy Tail One: 47**

 **Crime Sorciere: 40**

 **Fairy Tail A: 36**

 **Alvarez: 35**

 **Sabertooth: 35**

 **Mermaid Heel: 26**

 **Lamia Scale: 23**

 **Blue Pegasus: 12**

Mato gives a brief announcement after the audience has enough time to register the scores. "We'll take a brief break to allow our competitors to heal up a bit before we continue. I'm sure that many of you have already locked in your votes, so it's only fair that you don't have a match that you wanted to see get cut short because of the previous event!" The healing process shouldn't take too long; the only ones who are badly hurt are the last four competitors, and they're all quite resilient.

With Erza being healed and Wendy gone to help out, the section reserved for Fairy Tail Team A feels somewhat empty. However, Natsu couldn't be more excited. He breathes a stream of fire straight into the air, drawing a lot of attention to him as he shouts out. "Three versus three? Send whoever you want, B team! I'll take 'em ALL on!"

Gajeel's annoyed at Natsu's attitude. "We're Team One, Salamander! Team ONE! 'Cause we'll be number one by the end!"

Meanwhile, Lucy and Gray smack Natsu on the back of the head. Thankfully, he's stopped breathing fire by this point, so he doesn't roast anyone in front of him. "You might not get voted in to participate, you know," Lucy remarks.

"And if you do," Gray adds, "don't try anything like that stunt you pulled with Gajeel last time. This tournament's not just about you, flame-brain."

"Yeah, yeah." Natsu brushes off their concerns. Sure, mages of Fairy Tail fight all of the time, but this time, there's a whole crowd cheering them on, and all sorts of people watching them from around the world. His main hope is to beat up Laxus with everyone watching, but even beating Gajeel or Mirajane would work, as long as Mirajane went all-out. "I'm all fired up!"

 **One of my biggest problems with the original Grand Magic Games was the lack of conflict between Fairy Tail's two teams. When it was revealed that Fairy Tail had two teams, I thought it would be a great opportunity – have Natsu and Gajeel settle their score, since Natsu only won the original fight with help from Lucy, or have Erza vs. Mirajane since we've been told that they fought a lot, but never actually got to see it on panel. Then there's Gray vs. Juvia, or Lucy vs. Juvia, to show how much those characters have developed since their fights in the early parts of the manga. Maybe Erza vs. "Mystogan" to give us some relationship drama and development, and I could go on and on with hypothetical match-ups.**

 **My point is that Mashima gave Fairy Tail two teams, hinted at the possibility of the teams coming into conflict, and then did nothing with that premise. I understand that it can be difficult to plan out long-term when writing on a week-by-week basis, and there were some matches that needed to be set up (Elfman getting time to shine, Wendy vs. Chelia, the battle of the four Dragon Slayers), but I was hoping we'd get something like that at some point, and it was disappointing to see that not really get touched upon.**

 **I'm interested to hear your ideas for the other matches as well – some, like Lamia Scale vs. Sabertooth, could go either way depending on the composition of the teams. I don't know how long it will take to write these matches out (like I've said before, having six mages involved in a fight could get complicated, especially if I want to avoid it splitting off into three one-on-ones), but I'll do my best, and every vote helps in terms of giving me inspiration to work with.**


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